One of my cardinal rules of hitchhiking is never be in a hurry. Things get stressful then. And then you get desperate and make mistakes. So here i am, having left zagreb far too late, barely out of the city and getting annoyed that my ride has just wasted a half hour of my time by wanting to take me to the wrong border. We sorted out the misunderstanding, he's taking me back to my highway, but has stopped for petrol before we get there. Also, he doesn't seen to be going anywhere himself, just willing to take me where i want to go, which isn't a good sign, and we don't have a language. Re i think as soon as we get back to the highway, i will make my excuses, say i'm looking for ride all the way to austria, and get out.

Which is exactly what i did, and now i'm suffering EU shock at a gas station near graz. The prices are horrible, i have to speak german with actual native speakers, i didn't notice when we entered Austria, and the gas station has free wifi. All shocks to the system.
I will make it to Vienna tonight, but only if i put this down and go and ask some cars!

today's plans

So the plan today was to leave early and hitchhike all the way to Prague in one day. The longest solo hitchhike I have done.
But somehow the reception of Annie Sprinkle's Big Green Queer Wedding last night - the last event of the Zagreb Queer Festival was way too much fun and I didn't get to sleep until 6.30 this morning, which made my plan of leaving around 8 a little tricky. And now it's 2pm, and I'm still here.
So a slight change of plan - I have a choice of two places to stay in Vienna tonight, so I will turn up and work out which one is easiest. Vienna is only halfway to prague, so I should be able to leave here in the next hour and still get there at a reasonable time tonight and then leave early and still make it to the Freedom not Fear march in Prague with Solene. But if not, then at least I'm sure I'll make it to Prague for the night!
And then early Sunday morning, Solene and I head for France in the longest hitchhiking-all-at-once trip I have done. I generally prefer to do shorter trips and stop and see lots of things, but this is a 1600km dash across the continent in two days. Should be fun!

In other strange news - last night someone recognised me from my Couchsurfing profile. She said 'Hey, you're the couchsurfer', and I said 'I am a couchsurfer, but... which couchsurfer?' and she said 'the one from the mailing list!' and I said 'which mailing list' and she said 'the queer couchsurfers list' and I said, 'yes I am but how on earth did you recognise me from that picture?'. It seems she had noticed my posts to the list talking about going to the various festivals I've been to in the last few weeks. So next time I'm in Zagreb, it seems I have more than one option for where to spend the night!

Zagreb adventures

I left zelenkovac at lunchtime on friday, and got rides pretty easily first out to the highway, (i use highway in the australian sense of 'main road between cities' not, as i have recently realised it is used on this side of the world to mean 'freeway, or multi-lane motorway'.) then to past Banja Luka and then all the way to Zagreb with a nice Slovenian businessman.
Once in Zagreb i wandered about the southern suburbs (having been dropped on the highway in the south of the city) until i found wifi to check email for the first time in days and also work out what post of currency they had so that i could decide how much to withdraw. I think the Kuna is about the 305th currency i've dealt with in the last two months. Bring on the euro, i say. Purely for my own convenience, obviously.
Once i had money and the address of the squat i had arranged to stay in, i headed for it, or at least, into the centre, as i couldn't find the street on my map, but figured it was more central than where i was. It wasn't until later that i discovered that streets can be in nominative or genitive case- two forms which, naturally, bear little resemblance to each other. I swear they just do it to confuse foreigners...
Once i asked a nice lady in a bookshop to help of look it up on one of the maps she was selling, and paused for a splurge of an almost real dinner, and then got a little disoriented and walked 10mins in the wrong direction, giving me a tour of the centre on my way, i found the squat. And 3 random montrealers who let me in and then reassured of that i still understand quebecois, and that my accent is more english and french than canadian. The french french think otherwise... I also met some girls who were making an art studio in the squat and ended up going out with them to a bar and then a club at the nearby student centre. Both places were interesting- the bar is called Kriva Put, which means 'the wrong way' and the gallery on the other side of the courtyard/beergarden is 'the Right way'. It was a good place, with the right line of people, and i felt quite at home. At the student centre there was an electronic music performance going on, which was intermittently interesting and unbearable. The guy who appeared to be playing Super Mario Brothers on an old gameboy throughout his set was an example.
At about 1.30 i decided it was time to in home, as it had been a long day. I was a little concerned that i didn't have a key, it was pouring rain and quite cold and i hadn't yet managed to talk to the person i was supposed to about staying, but i figured the canadians would let me in, at least.
When i got back there it was all dark and quiet, though i could hear music from the other side of the yard somewhere. Noone answered my knock, and i resigned myself to waiting in the shelter by the door for someone to come. Half an hour or so later i remembered that the people i had left at the club not far away had a key, but by the time i got back there (through the pain again) it had closed and everyone had left. So i went back and stood and waited again, assessing my options. At one point someone did put their head out a window, but in a part of the building that i wasn't sure was part of the squat, so when i said 'can you let me in' and if shook his head and disappeared, i just figured they were the neighbours or something. Of course i found out later that it was all the same place, so he could have.
Anyway, having considered going to a hostel (not worth it at 3.30 in the morning) and wished very much that i had my sleeping rag and bivvy that were locked inside with my stuff (there were a couple of sheltered almost indoor places i could have slept, if i'd had my stuff) I resigned myself to waiting another 2 hours til the canadians left for their 6am train. And then the door across the courtyard opened and i realised the music was coming from there. I asked the girl who came out if she knew the people in the squat, and she said no, but that i should come and john ties party. So i did, although my exhaustion levels couldn't quite keep up with the dancing they seemed to expert of me. After telling my story and warming up a bit, i discovered that the room we were in was also squatted, and they were just a bunch of friends using the space for a party. And then the police showed up and very politely told us to leave. So we did. And as we did, a girl called Marina said 'you have no where to sleep, so you can come home with me. So i did. And so did half the party, which then continued in a quieter more subdued fashion until 7am, when i finally went to sleep on marina's floor in a borrowed tshirt and trackpants (all my stuff was soaked after so much wandering around in the rain). It was good, though. Marina was an excellent host and i had a shower and heat and all sorts of luxuries the squat didn't have.
The next afternoon when i got back to the squat, i found the art-studio girls again and the introduced me to someone who could give me a key, and i arranged to stay one more night, figuring i would work on getting couchsurfing or something after that. Also, they were having a band play on the sunday night, and were expecting the police to show up, and the chances are we would have been kicked out for the night anyway.
Key in hand and night's accommodation secured, i set off for the film festival office to offer myself as a volunteer, which is, of course, the reason i came to Zagreb.
I found the info centre, rather than the office, but close enough. They rang the office and then asked me if i was ready to in straight to work. Half an hour later i was taking tickets at kino Europa, and then seeing a film about homosexuality, biblical literalism and religious parents. It's called 'For the Bible Tells Me So' and is an excellent doco. Since then i've taken lots of tickets, and seen lots of good films, one terrible one, and a theatre performance involving puppets raping and murdering each other that was so well done i expect nightmares. Very disturbing. Oh, and i have also met Annie Sprinkle, who will be performing tomorrow.
While collecting tickets that first evening, i met Marta, one of the Zagreb people i had met in Sarajevo, and the one who had told me they still needed volunteers and that there was a squat i could stay in. She was impressed to hear i had followed her instructions to the letter, heard my plan to find another place to stay, and resolved to find me something, as she felt somewhat responsible for me! 5 mins later, someone came up to of at the door and said 'i hear you need a place to stay. You can stay at my place.'
I moved to Gordana's place the next afternoon, and found myself very well looked after. I have my own bed in my own room, i have washed myself and my hair and my clothes and my towel and i've caught up on lots of internet. And learnt to appreciate mac computers. And i think i've decided what to do next. But I'll blog about that next time!

forest interlude at Zelenkovac

So i'm sleepingin a wooden bungalow in a forest, and i've spent the evening tending a fire, playing with a kitten and talking to a woman from Nis who came here for a one week holiday 4 months ago and never left.
Getting here was relatively easy. I walked out of Mostar and spent about 20mins with my thumb out before a truck stopped for me and i had a lovely 4 hours with a nice guy called mari, who spoke enough german to explain to me some of the more confusing things about Bosnian geography, like which villages are muslim and where Hercegovina ended and Bosnia began and then where the Bosnian republic of Serbia started. It was odd, knowing we were nowhere near the border, when he points at the hillside across the gorge (there are some gorgeous gorges in this country. Or countries) and says 'that's croatia'. By which if meant the bit of Bosnia that is catholic, and therefore croatian...).
From Jajce i got a ride with a guy who spoke about 10words of italian, except some of them were german... If had never heard of Zelenkovac, but, after a brief pause to get a 30mark fine for speeding, dropped me at the turnoff to Mrkonjic Grad, where i asked the first person i saw, and discovered that i had got out about 10km too early. But it turned out ok, as i was only there another 10mins or so, a little worried in the fading daylight, when a farmer who lived somewhere right near this place picked me up, bought me a beer in a bar in the village of Podrasnica, and not only drove me to the door but walked in with of and explained where he had found me. All the while talking to me in local language (whatever they call it here- it's too political for me), despite my minimal understanding.
Zelenkovac is a rather amazing place to have found on couchsurfing. It's an ecological zone, and a site that hosts a jazz festival and similar things in the summer, and they rent out the bungalows that are already finished. There's a plan to finish more of then by next summer. It's good to be in the mountains and out of the cities, even if it is rather chilly up here. And my bungalow is unheated... The bar/gallery has a nice fire though, and there is a bathroom with hot water. And a little kitchen. It all feels rather like camping, though. And it's definitely a summer sort of place- i'm told it will be closed in a few weeks and not reopened until april when the snow melts. It's almost a pity, because i could imagine it would be cosy and oh so rustic to spend a few nights here in the middle of winter, probably snowed in and very dependent on the fire. And then it would be very annoying that all the different rooms are only accessible from the outside- you have to in outside to get to the shower, the bedrooms, the kitchen...
Today, however, I spent nearly the whole day today outside in whatever sun i could find with the noise of the brook (it was originally a water mill) constantly in my ears. Makes a change from city and highway noises. I sat about, read my book (i'm about halfway through the french Terry Pratchett Sean lent me a few months ago!), played my recorder (added the blackadder theme, early one morning and danny boy to my previous repertoire of mainly mythica songs), went for a walk and found some of the most impressive mushrooms i have ever seen, played with the kitten some more, poked the fire (which was appreciated even in the middle of the day), and walked the kilometre or so into the village for supplies and a coffee in one of the TWO bars there (it's may be a one horse town, but it's got two bars...).
All in all a very peaceful break. And completely internet free (though i did spend an hour getting my computer fix by sorting photos and playing solitaire). But the lack of net means i have no idea if i have a couch in Banja Luka tmrw night, or if i should go straight to Zagreb, where at least i know there is a squat where i can stay.

Pros and cons of staying in Sarajevo

Pros and cons of staying in Sarajevo
Pros
It's cheap.
I know a few people there now.
I know a place to stay
The IH school there is looking for teachers and sound pretty flexible about contracts and whatnot
The school provides accommodation to native speaker teachers.
Otherwise i'm told i can rent a house in the centre for 150euro a month, and don't need a whole house and i don't need to live in the centre.
I haven't seen all i want to see there.
It's easy to ride the trams for free...
It's pretty, despite the communist concrete and war damage, which rather add considerably to its charm.
There are dozens of second hand clothing shops in Sarajevo.
I might actually learn some modern history
The people i've met are all interesting and interested.
It would be interesting to live somewhere where people my age remember war so clearly.
Bosnia Hercegovina is a beautiful and very confused and confusing country.
Such a huge percentage of the population left during the war, and a lot have come back, which means a lot of people have travelled or lived in other cultures. Even as refugees, this gives then a different viewpoint to that which i have seen in most of the rest of the Balkans.
I'd have to learn a slavic language...

Cons
I'd have to learn a slavic language...
Sarajevo gets pretty damn cold and snowy, i think. And i bet there is less heating around than in canada...
I wouldn't be able to wander about europe as i have been. And there are still festivals i want to go to, although not so many in winter.
They might want me to start soon, which would make my vague plan of going through italy to malta difficult.
They might want me to work full time! Gah! Though i did ask about part time and they said they were very flexible.
There's that whole extremist element who beat up queer festival goers last week. Living in the same city as people like that could be interesting.
More than one local warned of that Sarajevo is not such a safe place, and that i should watch out for pickpockets etc.
Didn't i want to live in Romania? And learn romanian?
Or do some sort of volunteer thing somewhere? Why an i looking at a real job?
I would end up saying 'super' in regular conversation. Probably when speaking any language, too.

next stop

setting off from mostar right now to a place called Zelenkovac. Google it. It's pretty. I found it on couchsurfing and thought it would make a great place to stop on the way to Zagreb!
The only problem is finding it. I know the nearest town, but from there i just have to hope people know. I'm thinking they will.
No net there though. Or not much, and it's a long distance call. So i.ll post next from Banja Luka or Zagreb, in a day or two!

thoughts on mostar

Back at abrasevic, and sitting here surrounded by the very concrete reminders of war, and listening to periodic explosions in the distance. It's only kids setting off fireworks for today's bajram holiday, but it's an eerie feeling nonetheless!
It's nicely counteracted by the hillside behind the ruins though. Like Sarajevo, Mostar is surrounded by hills, but unlike the greenery of Sarajevo, these ones are a rocky, dusty grey-green. They are impressive, though. The climate is also much warmer, with today being t.shirt weather! And the sun was so nice to see. Although it made waking up rather warm, as i was all rugged up for the cold night in my bivvy!

pristina to mostar- catchup post

So i've been busy, and with people, so haven't blogged much. Now i'm more or less on my own again, so i have time to sit in a cafe and write.
Quick summary: the day i left prishtina i went to Prizren by bus with some polish people i met in the professor's guesthouse, and spent the morning wandering around in the rain. In prizren i also bought a recorder, so i finally have a portable instrument, even if it is one people don't want to hear too much of... At least it's a wooden one and isn't too shrill. In the afternoon i said goodbye and went off to find the highway back to Skopje, as i needed to enter serbia through a border point that wasn't in kosova. A million short rides later and i was back in Skopje. After One night at the creatively named hostel-hostel), i went to find the highway to Nis. Half an hour wait at a petrol station and i had a reasonably easy series of rides to nis, with the last one being right to the door of my hostel, which was rather nice! I spent the evening with other couchsurfers and locals, which was fun, but meant i didn't get such an early start the next morning...
Leaving Nis i walked through the fortress and then past the local concentration camp. I got to the highway, and went most of the way to belgrade with Yet Another turkish truck driver. I'm very glad i can communicate in turkish. That and german are the most common languages of the people who pick me up!
Belgrade was interesting, but i didn't do much outside the queer festival, which i will write about separately. I stayed with a wonderful couchsurfer host who lived in a delightful rundown old house, where the window was my most common means of leaving or entering. Even if i had had a key, the door was somewhat temperamental!
In Belgrade heard about the Sarajevo queer festival, and decided to in there next, rather than Zagreb as planned. I also met Solene, who had the same idea, and together we hitched to Sarajevo on Tuesday. After a latish start, we ended up just past the wonderfully mountainous border in the town of Visegrad as night was falling, and were concerned that we would spend the night there, when a lovely guy who lives in Austria but was visiting family picked us up, drove us all the way to Sarajevo, and let us sleep in his house for the night. He and i communicated in german, and with Solene he spoke Bosnian while she spoke czech, turning to me for translation through english and german when necessary. And then together Solene and i would speak english, except if we wanted to be sure our friend didn't understand, when we spoke french. See, this is why i travel. I average 3 or 4 languages a day!
The next morning he drove us into town and, miraculously, we ran into the very people we were looking for a net cafe to contact (friends from the Belgrade fest) in the main square of the old town.
Sarajevo is a lovely place. Despite the festival problems (more later), i really like it, and i met lots of lovely local people who made of feel very welcome- something i didn't really get in Belgrade. So even though the festival ended up cancelled, i stayed nearly a week, mostly staying in the office-apartment of an organisation that helps people get out of military service. Or something. And yesterday, before i left, i contacted an english school that is looking for teachers. I think i could quite happily spend the winter here...
Yesterday, after my first lovely sunny day in weeks, i set off in the late afternoon to come to Mostar. The plan was to meet Anthea, who i last say in Montreal, but it didn't quite work out, so i'm here alone. I had the address of a good place here though- a youth centre sort of community place called Abrasevic. I had no idea what i would find there, or if i would find it at all, as i only had a street name, but i did, and found a bunch of nice people, including, by chance, the one guy from here i had met in Sarajevo, still sporting an impressively bandaged broken nose from the queer festival violence. And it's right on the 1995 front line. I'm told that the building on one side of the courtyard was occupied by Croats, and the other by the muslims. Certainly both are pretty thoroughly destroyed. The building that houses most of the youth centre was also destroyed, but has been partially restored.
In Sarajevo there were signs of the war all over the place, if you opened your eyes and looked. i think more money has been put into restoring the capital. Here, the signs are really impossible to miss, with bombed shells of buildings everywhere, as are the tell-tale skeletal rose indentations in the pavements from shell explosions. Every building, except the few that have been re-plastered or are new, is pocked with bullet wounds.
Last night the abrasevic people let me put my tent on the roof, and i'm told that tonight i can sleep on a sofa or something. The roof was ok, but a sofa will be luxury! In the mean time, i'm out exploring Mostar, and tomorrow i.ll head either to Banja Luka or Zagreb, depending on couchsurfing and hitchhiking luck!

Festival Tour

So, i was in Belgrade, at the Q*ueer festival, and I heard about this festival in Sarajevo, so I came here for that. After all, I was thinking of coming anyway. And then I heard about this festival next week in Zagreb, which wasn't in my plan (I was going to head south from here) but whatever. It sounds like fun!
Of course, festivals in this part of the world mean police protection, and living with the possibility of fascist or fundamentalist violence. I am mostly pretty safe, as I am female, and once you're out of the immediate area, and look relatively 'normal' then there isn't much danger. Still, I haven't taken so many taxis in a long time!
There was a minor attack in Belgrade - three people were slightly injured, but the police response was swift (there was a busload of them outside the festival the entire time).
In Sarajevo the attacks from the fundametalists, (who were particularly mad that it was held during Ramadan) were more serious. It is the first queer festival they have had, and they expected trouble, but they weren't prepared for what happened. Here's a BBC article about it. I was mostly safely still inside the Gallery when it was all happening, and then we had a short walk behind the police lines to the place where police were getting taxis for us, and thankfully, unlike others, our taxi wasn't followed or stopped by a guy with a gun...
Anyway, the festival is now more or less cancelled. I will write more when I can. Until then, I will upload my phone photos as I take them (and when i find wifi...).

dark danube

The very dark picture i just uploaded is of the danube. I'm on a boat. A boat that's fixed to the shore, but still a boat. The saturday night party and concert of the queer beograd festival is being held here. After an attack last night, we were escorted here from the daytime venue by the police. It was like a parade, except at night, and with only about 50 people, and on banners or noise... Very odd, really!
But it'r been a good night, nonetheless, although i'm currently by a window seeking refuge from the serious passive smoking habit the balkans have forced me to develop...
The band are now playing Roxanne, so i may have to go dance.

safety strategies

And back to border crossings that take forever and give of time to write...
I'm on my way from Skopje (again) to Nis, and in a truck which is what is causing the delay. I could get out and try for a car, which would in faster, but might not take me the whole way, and i would lose the time advantage waiting for another ride. This guy seems nice enough, and speaks enough german that we communicate quite well, and is going all the way to Nis and beyond. I just have to wait for this incredibly long line of trucks to move. Which they haven't since we stopped here 10mins ago...
So it turns out there is some post of problem with the serbian computer system, and all the trucks are stopped. Some have been waiting 3 hours already. So i said goodbye to my driver and walked through the border to try my luck on the other side. And find a bathroom. I found both quite easily, and got another ride in another truck that had got through the border, but this time with a young guy i seen to have no languages in common with.
Just about every driver, in any kind of vehicle, in any language, seems to have the same list of questions and conversation topics to cover. First comes the 'where are you from' part, and then the 'where are you going to / coming from' and questions about my whole trip. Then there's the surprise that i'm doing it all by hitchhiking, and alone, what's more. Which almost inevitably leads to the 'are you married / do you have a boyfriend' question, at which point the conversation either moves on to other topics (languages spoken, countries visited, how far away and beautiful australia is, and whether i think they could get a visa...) or becomes more uncomfortable as they suggest i marry a [insert country here] man. And aren't [insert country here] men handsome, and don't i like them? Occasionally this leads on to where i am staying that night, and why don't i stay with them.
I have a few strategies that deflect some of these questions. In turkey when i was travelling with Xav and Marcin, i was doing all the communicating, and the questions took pretty much the same line (but more frequently got more uncomfortable, as turkish men are just generally irritating like that), with, of course, the added question about which of the two guys was 'mine'. After the first couple of drivers, i picked Xav to be my husband. ("xav, i know we only net two days ago, but i just told our driver that we are married...), and when asked where my ring was, said he had on money to buy one.
On my own i have a different strategy. I invent a friend in the town i am going to, and usually let it be assumed that it is a male friend. If i have a couchsurfer to meet, then i use what i know about them, and embellish as i like (or as i can in whatever language we're using), but i've also just invented completely fictitious people. The other day i made up an entire family. Sort of accidentally, as he was asking me (in a combination of albanian and macedonian and german and slightly lewd hand gestures) if it was a man or woman friend i was meeting. I got confused, somehow, and ended up saying both- a couple, in fact. Americans. And then if asked if they had children, and i thought i said no, but then if asked how many children, and i thought 'oh well' and invented a 6 year old daughter.
Whoever i choose to invent, i let the driver know there is someone waiting for me, even sometimes writing or receiving a fictitious sms from them. I figure it'r all just slightly safer that way!

Another pristina moment: walking along the street with my pack, i realise the kids behind of are listing all the countries of the patches on my bag. I smile at them, and they ask in rather excellent english "have you been to Japan"
"yes, i have" i reply.
"and to all these other countries?"
"yes."
How old are you?
I'm 28. how old are you?
15, (said the elder. The younger must have been about 12 or 13, but was slightly more comfortable with English, and did most of the talking). What do you do?
I'm an english teacher.
Ah. And do you know what country you will in to next?
Yes, i'm going to Serbia tomorrow morning.
Oh. It's bad in Serbia. Did you visit Kosova before?
No, this was my first time.
And what do you think?
I think that a lot of changes are happening now, and that if i come back later, i lot of things will be different.
Yes. They will. How long did you stay here?
three days.
And what do you think of the people...
The 20 questions continued in this very intelligent manner until we reached the bus stop that i was looking for.

pristina

So i'm sitting on a local bus in pristina that will hopefully take me to the right bit of highway to get to Nis. It'r an interesting ride. There are three guys sitting up the front of the bus, one of whom occasionally gives some of his attention to driving the bus, the second occasionally wanders back to sell a ticket or two, and the third just sits in a special seat, pen in hand, writing something every now and then. Mostly, though, they are just chatting. And each bus stop is an excuse to pause for a while. Hopefully the trip across town won't take forever, and i.ll be on the highway before it.s dark!

Skopje

Having driven all the way through Skopje, and out the other side, we finally got out of the truck at an intersection, and the driver pointed up back towards the center. We found a bus, sweet talked the driver into letting up on with only one ticket between us (we hadn't yet managed to change money in Macedonia, so we only had the last of the change from the border insurance) and we managed to get into the center of town. The next challenge was to find some money and then some wifi so i could use skype to phone Erin. Eventually we found both, Erin told up where to meet her, and told up to jump in a taxi. This would have been a find idea, if we hadn't been carrying our backpacks and therefore had 'stupid tourist' written all over us. Not having a clue what sort of price taxis were, we asked first, and were told by several different drivers that it would be 5euro. Prices in euro instead of the local currency always annoy me and make me very suspicious. So we asked a waiter, and discovered it was only a 10minute stroll along the river. Which is what we did. And then, despite mispronouncing the name of the street, we found the place miraculously easily.
That evening was spent going to a jackson Pollock lecture and having dinner at a place called 'Macadonian Kitchen' with erin and a couple of her American friends, which was a great introduction to the city. I spent the next 4 nights at Erin's, even though she had other friends staying as well (Peace Corps volunteers in the capital get a lot of visitors!), and spent most of the time doing not very much, which was lovely, and felt like a bit of a holiday. And while i liked Skopje, it is not the world's prettiest city (most of the older bits were destroyed in an earthquake in the 70s or something - just at the height of the communist concrete era) and i worked out that my path is likely to bring me back through Macedonia, so i can see more later. Really!

Kriva Palanka

We had lined up a couch in Kriva Palanka with Jillian and Dan, two American Peace Corps volunteers who teach English at the two schools there. The instructions we had for finding them at home (it was a public holiday) were "Ask any kid to show you where the Americans live - they all know!". So we did. Except we didn't see any kids, really, so we asked adults, but, once they had ascertained that we were talking about the teachers, one of whom has a beard (not that there are any other Americans in town, but just about everyone remarked on Dan's beard!), we got pointed up a hill. It turned out to be the wrong hill, but it was an adventure anyway. And some kind man in the house we were pointed towards (which seemed to have a goat track for a street) who obviously had children knew exactly where they lived, and pointed us in the right direction, then watched us walk down the hill, obviously still looking a bit lost, and ended up running down the hill to show us more directly. Even so, as their house hides up another dirt track, it took another villager or three to get us there. But we did, and Jillian answered the door and welcomed us into their lovely woodpanelled, many-leveled, 70s-decorated home, inhabited by the two of them and a tiny kitten who seemed to have endless energy. And very sharp little teeth!
We had a lovely night staying with them. In the afternoon we explored the local sight - a monastery up in the hills, which was beautiful, peaceful, and sold t-shirts, one of which I bought from the resident nun (the only resident, apparently), and then came back to a lovely home-cooked meal (my first in a while) and our first taste of Skopsko beer and macedonian wine (both drinkable, neither anything special!).
In the morning we said goodbye, sampled the local version of the turkish Burek for breakfast, and walked to the edge of town to flag down a lift. Except there wasn't any traffic. Well, not much. After an hour, standing in the sun in the 33 degree heat, mike managed to convince a truck driver who stopped at the nearby gas station to take us. He was one of the most silent drivers I have ever had, and dropped us on the wrong side of Skopje (the far side - it would have been great if we were continuing past Skopje), but he got us there, and in air-conditioned comfort. And the ride through the hills of Macedonia was amazing, and a truck provides such a good view, so I enjoyed the ride!
And then we were in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia!

Getting to Macedonia

On monday morning, Stanislave drove Mike (another couchsurfing hitchhiker) and I to the right highway on his way to work (only adding one or two hours to his journey...) and, after a brief stop for coffee and strange local breakfast, we started walking along the road, looking for a decent spot to stand. We paused to write a sign that said MK (for Macedonia) and while we were doing it, some lady started talking to us. At first she seemed kinda annoyed about something or other - maybe she thought we were writing directly on the wall we were leaning on with our piece of paper. When she saw what we were doing, she started telling us about the bus to Macedonia, and we said 'Nie autobus, Autostop!', and thanked her and walked ahead. Except 30 seconds later she called out to us again, and started giving us lots of advice - showing us how to hold our sign, and that sort of thing. We said thank you, and started walking ahead of her. 30 seconds later, she calls out to us again, and we wait for her to catch up, and this time, she opens her handbag and produces a packet of biscuits, which she presses into our hands. Next comes a booklet about some saint and a newsletter about some doctor - all in Cyrillic, and I try to demonstrate that I can't really read Cyrillic, but she just approves of my efforts, and won't take it back. Next comes 20lev (about AU$20) which she also won't accept back, despite about 5 minutes of trying. Next she takes us to the local fountain - Sofia is well supplied with underground natural springs, and the locals take their waterbottles to fill at the fountains. While we filled our bottles, she told and showed us how we should drink some and wash our eyes, because it was good for eyes and stomachs. In the end, we took photos of her, and, although she wanted a copy, as she didn't have an email address, and didn't know the address of her daughter who lives in New York, it seemed a little difficult. In hindsight, I should have remembered the existance of snail mail addresses, and the fact that photos can probably still be printed on actual paper in some places...
Oh, and I should also point out that all the communicating in this adventure was done in Bulgarian. No, I don't speak Bulgarian. Nor does Mike, but with collocations (such as Autobus, and something that sounded a lot like the italian 'ochii' for eyes) and Mike's Polish - and my passive Polish (I hadn't realised how much I had absorbed over the years - thanks to all the polophones I have associated with!) and lots of sign language, we understood each other reasonably well!
We finally left her at the water fountain, and walked another 5 minutes or so to a gas station, and got a ride with an air traffic controler about half an hour later. He drove us to Kjustendil, a small town on the border, and went out of his way to drop us at a good spot on the edge of town, where we waited another half hour, and bought some biscuits that tasted suspiciously of laundry powder, and then got a ride all the way to Kriva Palanka with a lovely guy who spoke very lttle english, but tried really hard!
The only minor delay was at the border, where there was a new system, only a week old. As of the 1st of September, every visitor to Macedonia has to buy travel insurance at the border. It only cost 3.5 euro for 6 days, or 4.3 for 15 days, but every foreigner had to buy it, and there was one guy in an office selling it. Each person would tell them how long they wanted to be there, and what currency they wanted to pay in, he would look up his list, tell them the amount, then take their passport and type (with one finger) all the details into his computer. The forms would print in triplicate, three signatures were required, he would take the money and make change from the random piles of random currencies he had in front of him, and hand you your insurance policy. As we arrived soon after a whole bus load of foreigners, it took nearly an hour (lined up in the sun) to do it. Hopefully they will get more efficient as they get used to the system...

three days in Sofia

And macedonia makes 55 countries... I'm in a truck on my way to Skopje and have time to write!
My three days in Sofia were great, staying with stanislav, who must have been Sofia's busiest couchsurfer this weekend. There was marcin and i (Xav had found another couch) and then 2 french guys arrived the second night, and then another CSer i had been emailing about hitching together showed up and didn't have anywhere else to go, so stayed on the floor, as Stanislav had finally run out of actual couches! I started calling it Hostel Stanislav! And the language tended to be french as everyone but Marcin understood.
The highlights of Sofia were:
*the grand architecture of the centre,
* the roman ruins and ancent churches hidden in subway underpasses and building courtyards
*the bar called 'Boats' (Lodki) in a park that had such a great and varied mix of people- and music- and where i net several lovely people, including Milen, one of the sweetest and most entertaining guys i have net.
*a local dish consisting of feta cheese fried with honey and walnuts, which i'm assured has the very original name of 'cheese with honey and walnuts'
*staying in the delightfully datedly decorated Hostel Chez Stanislav, in a communist concrete suburb, smoking narghile at 4 in the morning, speaking quebecois, and discussing the comparative merits of montreal and Sofia.
Sofia was fun!

the end of the trip to Sofia (from a few posts back)

Eventually, a truck driver agreed to take us as far as the parking place, and we crammed in (we were quite good at cramming by then) and finally left the border. Our troubles were.mt quite over, and we had another hour or three at a gas station a little later. None of us were feeling particularly fast that day anyway...
Our next and last ride was a fascinating iranian british man who had spent many years as a fighter pilot before becoming a political prisoner and escaping by walking from iran to greece. He teaches in london now, and as he can't return, he goes to istanbul to meet his friends and family, and was driving a lovely air-conditioned rental car all the way to Sofia for a bit of a holiday. His stories kept us entertained all the way into the very center of Sofia, where the three of up found a garden cafe for a adds and waited for our wonderful couchsurfing host to arrive and drive us to his home. After so many adventures, the last stretch was so easy!

Prishtina, Kosovo

So I made it to Prishtina, but still haven't found much in the way of wifi (by which I mean I haven't found an unsecured network) and the guesthouse I'm staying in doesn't have any... So all the typing I've been doing on my phone, and all the photos I've taken, will have to wait. Hopefully tomorrow I'll find something. And then there will be several updates all at once...
Be prepared.

6 Years...

So today, I think, it's been 6 years since I left Brisbane for my first teaching job in China. The longest I've lived anywhere since is 7 months (Padova, Italy), and my average is closer to 3 or 4. I've been back to australia for 3 months, 4 months, and two stints of 6 months in that time.
But basically, it's been 6 years travelling.
It's a long time.
But why stop now?

I'm in Skopje, Macedonia, and head for Kosovo and Serbia soon. I have written much on my phone, but haven't had any wifi lately to upload it! I will try to find some in Kosovo...

Still alive

Haven't found wifi lately to upload the blog I've written on my phone, but I'm still alive, in Sofia, and planning to hitch to a small town in macedonia tomorrow with someone I just met half an hour ago.
Life as usual, really.

to sofia by autostop in three people

So on thursday morning i met marcin and xav only an hour after we planned... An hour or two later we were walking from the last metro stop to the place on the highway recommended by hitchwiki. We were attempting to cross a big busy road, standing on the corner, when a lady who happened to have her window open asked us if we needed a ride. And so began our trip!
Hitching with 3 people isn't necessarily the best idea- it means you need cars and trucks with enough space, and people are slightly less willing to pick up that many people. But we managed. It wasn't the fastest trip i've ever had- it took up two days- but it was a lot of fun. We squeezed into tiny cars, trucks of various sizes and one water delivery van. I spoke more turkish in one day than i had in a week in istanbul. We met about 6 other hitchhikers just after the border (which we arrived at around 10pm), and one of them, a nice french guy called emile, joined us for a midnight picnic and bottle of duty-free turkish raki, amongst all the little shops and petrol stations clustered around the 50metres of road just after the border. And then he added his bottle of syrian arak as well (i prefer raki i think) and somehow our night finished at 4 in the morning, sleeping on a patch of grass beside the Shell station!
In the morning it was too hot to sleep by about 9am, but our friend emile, who had attempted an early start, was still standing at the border, waving his sign at the few trucks and cars passing by. Unlike at 4 in the morning, the place was disturbingly quiet. I wonder if this had something to do with Ramadan, or if it's always like that. We figured that as long as he was there, there was no way the 3 of us were going to get a ride. So we sat on the little veranda of a store that sold coffee and a strange assortment of other things, and waited. None of up was feeling like standing in the sun for hours, anyway...
A few hours later we noticed that emile had gone, so we took up his position and started getting a little more proactive. Trucks and cars had to stop at the last part of the border check, which gave us the opportunity to ask them more directly. We were asking even for 5km, as we had been told there was a truck parking place 5 or 20km away (opinions varied) and most of the drivers who passed us were going there to sleep. (to be continued...)

the phrase of the day

Impressive pilot, bulgarian bribes and a sweet landing in Sofia (we arrived in one piece)

princes islands

Yesterday, with Marcin and Xavier, two of the hitchhikers i had met at the CS picnic, i set off to see Büyükada, the imaginatively named big island of the princes islands, in the sea of Marmara. The ferry was 2 hours long, but a bargain at under 3lira, and stopped at three other islands on the way.
The ferry ride was lovely, and a good way to see the city, as always, and then getting off was like stepping into another world. There are no cars on the island- except police and other official-type vehicles, so all the transport is electric or animal. And one of the first things you notice is the smell of horses. And then you learn to watch out so as not to get run over by the horse-drawn carriages, of which there are many.
It was a very relaxing day, overall. We walked all over the island, from the house where Trotsky lived in exile to the monastery to europe's largest wooden structure to the various different beaches, all of which appeared to be paying ones, unfortunately. We also say some of the out of the way and less-touristy places, like the stables, and the cemetery. And we tried to hire donkeys. There was a guy hiring them out, and we thought it would be a good way to get around the rest of the island, but it turned out they were only really for rides across the square and back. It was fun attempting to negotiate in my minimal turkish, with Xav telling of what to attempt to say in french, and translating into english for Marcin!
There are a few photos from my phone on flickr, (see the ones dated sept 2) and the ones from my camera will follow one day!

back to Istanbul

The bus to istanbul was uneventful, apart from the pleasant surprise of little cakes, water and tea or nescafe being handed out just after 'take off', which made the fact that we had completely failed to find a supermarket for supplies before boarding. The overnight trip was nicely broken up by our 1am border crossing that took nearly two hours. Still, standing in the relatively turkish office waiting in line i was reassured that it was definitely turkey i was entering by no less than 11 different pictures of the great ataturk on the walls.
The last two days before sean's return to paris we spent seeing the last few must-see things in istanbul, like the grand bazar and the ancient cistern. Sean also went to aya Sofia, but as it now costs 20 lira- double what i remember 3 years ago- i decided i could skip it this time!
Once sean left, i continued to impose on the uncomplaining Roger, an old colleague, and proceeded to do little but sleep and watch tv for a couple of days. I think i was in serious need of a rest. I planned to continue this sleeping thing for a few more days, but in the interests of getting out of the house, i went to a couchsurfing picnic on Monday evening. It was, strangely enough, the first CS meeting i had ever been to, and it was a great reminder of just how useful the cs site is. I met bunches of interesting people, and was invited to a number of things in the following days. I also met a couple of other hitchhikers, and started making more travel plans!

Varna

Varna was another lovely black sea beach town, with roman ruins for a bit of more serious culture. I indulged in by newfound passion for sea bathing no less than three times in the 24 hours we were there, not to mention soak in the thermal spring that trickles across the beach. The springs are the reason the town exists, i imagine, and one of the star attractions is the ruins of the old roman baths- one of the the largest bath complexes in Europe. It's a great old ruin, tufted with weeds, overrun with cats and with a few rusty old signs telling you the purpose of some of the rooms. I liked it. We picked blackberries and little sour peaches.
We also managed to go to the same cafeteria style restaurant twice in the same time, but as they served local food that we could order by pointing, and our whole bill, including dessert and beers was only about AU$12 the first night, we figured it was worth it. Food was wonderfully cheap, actually- our bakery lunches cost under $2 for both of us, and breakfast was free at the hostel, so we did quite well! And the only inedible thing we had was something that resembled meatballs in a somewhat tasteless lumpy white sauce...

on to Varna

There is one bus a day from constanta to varna, and it leaves in the late afternoon, gets in late at night, and costs a fortune. So we followed some instructions we found online for getting there by local buses. A minibus to Mangalia and another from there to Vama Veche on the border. A short walk across the border, and a longish wait for a ride to the nearest Bulgarian town. We were offered taxis in a variety of languages, but thought we'd try hitching instead. We walked a kilometre or three to the nearest spot in the shade, and were there an hour or so before a minibus stopped on apparently its regular route. Miraculously, one of the three people on it spoke rather good english (being back in slavic land was a shock, even if it is 'slavic light' grammatically speaking. I still don't do slavic. AND it's written in cyrillic, which doesn't help) and helped up work out that the bus was going exactly where we wanted for a very reasonable price and if was willing to accept romanian money, as we had yet to find a change booth or bank in bulgaria. From Kavarna, at the end of the bus run, we managed to find money, some amazing bakery products and learn the word for thankyou in bulgarian- blagodarya- and got on another bus all the way to Varna.
The whole adventure took slightly longer than the expensive bus, but for half the price, and twice the adventure. And i got to spend an hour on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, which always makes of happy!

Constanta

Ok, so i'm a bit behind. So you're getting the short version.
Constanta was a lovely little beach town that i recommend to anyone passing through the area. There's a great old disused art-deco casino on the point there that was built in constanta's heyday, early last century, and a mosaic and archeology museum that we probably should have visited, but somehow Cafe Mosaic next door, with its big sofas, excellent wifi and lovely cheap iced coffees was somehow more appealing. Swimming in the Black sea was a pleasant surprise- i discovered that it's not as salty as many seas, so you come out feeling relatively clean. It was lovely, really. I hadn't swum in the sea since the lost coast in california. The only negatives were the slight crowding and inferior sand (we're so spoilt in australia) and a guy in red speedos who seemed determined that one of up notice them. We studiously ignored him...
Another fantastic thing about Constanta was staying with Luana, a couchsurfing contact who offered, not just a couch, but a bed, which was so nice we stayed two nights. Thanks Luana!

Leaving Chisinau

Another blogging... Er... i mean border post. And this one, between bulgaria and turkey, is notorious for taking a while. I didn't get to blog at the romania/bulgaria border- as they are both EU, and so are we, the formalities consisted of glancing at our passports. But now, i've plenty of time to recount the adventures of the last few days.
Leaving chisinau was fun. Both times. As there is only one bus per day, and it leaves in the evening, i thought we could make better time leaving in the morning and hitching to Varna. I should probably thought harder about imy hard it was to hitch in Romania a few years ago, and realised that moldova would be worse. But i was itching to hitch, so we set off. Following the directions on hitchwiki got us our first ride reasonably quickly. A trolleybus to the bus station on the edge of town, then join the army of hitchers standing at the trolleybus stop. It was all a bit confusing when you're used to having the road to yourself. But a nice guy who spoke excellent english picked us up, apparently stopping just for us, and drove us to Hincesti, a small town in the middle of nowhere, Moldova. Knowing we wanted to in to romania, he dropped us at the bus stop / hitching place, where we again joined the crowd. It wasn't so easy this time though. More local traffic, a smaller road and the disadvantages of being a foreigner with luggage made things hard. The system seemed to be that people would wave their hand at every passing vehicle, some of which would stop. Everyone would crowd around, and either people would get in, or someone would shout the destination given by the driver, or both. The system for the minibuses was more or less identical, except sometimes the destination was written on the front of the bus.
We had some problems with this system. For a start, the language and geographical knowledge barriers. It was hard for us to recognise the town name, and then work out if it was somewhere that would help us. By that time it was usually too late. And it reduced hitching, one of my favourite means of transport, to the same experience as waiting for a bus, except without knowing when or if it would come or where it would be going if it did ever come. Not so much fun, really.
We decided to wall up the road a bit, to get away from the local's hitching place, but it didn't help, really, and the 40 degree heat was getting to us, so, eventually, for the first time in my hitching career, we gave up. We walked the kilometre or so back into town, got out more moldovan lei from a bancomat and started asking about other options. I'm so glad romanian is occasionally comprehensible. The first lady told us the bus station was a long way away and we should take a taxi. Next was a nice conversation with a taxi driver, half in Italian (it took me a moment to work out why i was understanding so much of his romanian!) who sang his son who works at the train station in chisinau to tell up that the only way to get to romania was a bus that would stop in Hincesti, but only if you had already bought your ticket at the bus station in Chisinau. At that second, a bus to chisinau went past, so several of the locals who had got involved in our plight threw themselves in front of it for us, and we took it right back to the very bus stop we had started from 4 hours earlier.
We paid our ridiculously expensive bus fare (226 Moldtan Lei! Each! Our hotel was not much more than that for both of us! But, to keep it in perspective, the MOL is about 10 to one to the Aussie dollar... ) to Constanta and settled down to wait the hour and a half until the bus. At some point we thought to ask what time we would arrive in Constanta, thinking it could be fun to find accomodation late at night on arrival (no, of course we hadn't booked anything in advance!). We were only slightly horrified to discover we were about to spend 11 hours on a moldovan bus, and wouldn't arrive until the next morning. It's only 545km! But then you have to allow time for border crossing, and the bad roads and the bus driver who was either just learning how to drive (he was getting what looked like instruction from the second driver for the first hour or two) or was attempting to give up a very smooth ride by going at a max speed of 20kph forwhat seemed like most of the journey. Still, at least an overnight bus solved the need for accomodation. And it started to rain just as we were getting on, which turned into the most impressive storm i'd seen in a while, so i'm glad we weren't sleeping out that night. It's the only rain we saw on the whole trip.
The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful. Several terrible movies dubbed in the amusing lektor style, frequent alternations between getting rained on or having the hatch (the bus's only ventilation system, it seems) closed and spiflicating, and the border. Thanks to my gps on this phone, we discovered that the bus took neither of the highways i had marked on this map, but rather a smaller road that runs between them. No idea why, but it wasn't the only bus at the border. We had an hour or so at the moldovan exit point, then something similar at the romanian side, although i really have no idea, as i pretty much slept through it. In fact, i slept really solidly the rest of the way- better than i ever have on a bus, i think, and arrived in constanta feeling actually slightly alive and ready to do things like work out where to sleep that night, and what to see in Constanta!

Now in Varna, Bulgaria

But the border crossing was way too easy, as they are both EU countries (unlike the last time I passed through here) and we are both EU citizens (unlike the last time I passed through here...). So no blogging. I do, however, have the Bulgaria-Turkey border to look forward to tomorrow night, and that takes hoursnhours. So I'm sure I'll have time to blog about Constanta in Romania and Varna in Bulgaria. Not to mention our adventures leaving Chisinau - both times.
In the meantime you just have to be content with the photos I'm uploading from my phone in the sidebars to the left and right here. And here's one we took this evening.

all about chisinau

We're through the moldovan side. Now we're waiting for Romania to let us in. According to my gps, we're not on a road. But the moldovan exit stamp says Cahul, and i've seen busses to there, so i assume it exists.
Chisinau was fun. We stayed in a huge old communist era hotel called Hotel Zaria that was quite affordable, and decorated like a polish grandmother's house. We managed to find it without too many problems, despite arriving at dusk and the lack of street lights in even quite major streets. We felt it was highly civilised, though, as we had a fridge, a tv that occasionally spoke english, and a 24 hour supermarket around the corner that provided most of our meals while we were there. We were so comfortable we decided to stay 2 nights.
The town was an interesting mix of crumbling communist and pre-communist era grand buildings and cars, and shiny new expensive shops and cars, particularly on the main street.
One entertaining sight- a bridal party standing next to a yellow taxi, apparently on the way to the wedding. It was amusing to think of the old crappy taxi being the wedding car, and even more so when all 6 people, all their finery and the taxi driver crammed in and drove off, all under the benevolent eye of a pair of polizia routiere in their own decrepit vehicle.
The fact that the national mobile network is called Moldcell also amused me regularly.
There was some sort of motor race happening this weekend. We didn't see any evidence of the race itself, but there was a huge stage on the main street with speakers so loud we could hear it from the hotel a kilometre or more away. We discovered it was also broadcast live on tv, so we could hear it in stereo. We didn't watch much, but there was a really interesting act fronted by a singer who wore a tshirt saying 'gypsy punk' and i decided that was the best description of the music too. If i can ever work out their name, i would attempt to buy their cd. It was excellent! And there was a glass flute!
And it was a whole lot better than the first act we were subjected to while still wandering around town, which had lyrics such as 'i'm made in Moldova, riggidiggidig...'

the transdniestran story

Yet another border, yet another blog post. It's becoming a habit to blog while waiting for my passport to be returned. I hope this time we don't need to bribe anyone to get out of the country...
So Transdniestr was great- a great big (ok, not that big, but biggish) open air museum to the communist era. Have a look at flickr for a pic of Sean and i in front of the great big bust of Lenin in front of Soviet House, which is the government building there. The train station appears to be brand spanking new, and definitely in the typical communist pattern (all international trains are suspended, of course, but the train station is still impressive).
Leaving Transdniestr, we were taken off the little minibus and informed that we could not leave until we had had our departure card stamped by the passport office in town, 40 mins or so back the way we had come, and, as it was 7pm on a friday, possibly not open all weekend. The border guard we spoke to on entry to this tin pot country had told up that we had to register at the passport office if we stayed more than 10 hours. We had stayed 3. No one really spoke any language we do (i just can't handle slavic languages) but one guard took us into a little room and managed to explain 'present, Chisinau OK' and we understood what was expected. Unfortunately, the 5 euro or so had left in transdniestran rubles was not acceptable, and nor was the larger amount we had in ukrainian hrivny. A 20euro note finally did the trick, and our passports were returned and we were allowed to rejoin our bus, which we were very glad to see had waited for us. And so we managed to escape and get to the comparative luxury and civilisation of Chisinau.

things i had never done before today

Things i had never done before today. 22.08, 21.00
Heard of a country and gone there just a few hours later.
Bribed a border guard to get out of such a country
Been to Moldova

country count

Country count
Being now on the border of moldova and ukraine, waiting for customs, again, my country count has increased by 2 in the last day or so. But i have to think about this. You see, This bit of moldova is actually Transdniestr, a self-declared independent communist state. It has it's own stamps, valid for domestic mail only, its own currency, own government... But noone recognises it. So does it count? I never counted Christiania or Uzupio, but they are more hippy communes than countries, and are both within cities. This one takes up a large chunk of a country. I counted the vatican, but it is recognised by the UN. I haven't counted scotland, england and wales as separate (i've never been to northern ireland) but maybe i should? And then, of course i did count hong kong, but the first time i was there was before it was hande back to china. And i counted macau because i wanted to and because the visa requirements and currency are different. And then of course, Gibraltar has to count, because it'r so far from the rest of britain. Or england. Whichever it is supposed to belong to.
So basically, i have on hard rules for what counts. Which means i can just about make up my own number, and that number is, now that we have successfully crossed the Transdniestrian border, is 53.

that was odessa

After a mere hour or so waiting to get off the boat and go through customs, we were finally in Odessa. We had a total of 7 hrivny (about a euro) and there didn't seen to be a bank machine that accepted foreign cards at the port, but we knew it wasn't too far into town, as i had cleverly downloaded the map of odessa on my GPS phone (about which more later) and decide to slip the sir off taxi and walk into town with a couple of our new friends from the ferry, keeping an eye out for internet and hotels along the way.
The plan pretty much worked, although we discovered that hotels are few and far between, but, with the help of a net cafe, we found one after only a few hours of wandering around in 40 degree heat with our packs on, and it was only slightly overpriced. And apparently still under construction. I think we were the first people to use our room, as there was still plastic on the shower fitting. And the window didn't have a handle to close it. And it lacked curtains. And there was a great big metal beam diagonally across the middle of the room, but i gather that was a permanent fixture.
After that, and another similar walk from one end of town and back again to find dinner (sometimes it can be hard to find the post of cheap local stuff we wanted!) we figured we had seen enough of Odessa and decided to leave the next morning for Moldova.
While going to collect our breakfast from the reception desk (it seems the dining hall was also under construction, so we got a packed breakfast of one warm juice popper, one warm UHT yogurt, a wafer biscuit, a chocolate bar and a teabag) we met a polish couple just checking in who had a Lonely Planet guide to Europe on a Shoestring. When we asked to look at it to find a hotel in moldova (we knew there had to be one), they kindly lent it to us. Perusing it over breakfast , i learnt about the existance of Transdniestr, and decided that, as it was right on our way, we should stop there. We also photographed all the relevant sections of the guide before we have it back, so we should be a little less in the dark for the rest of the trip!

ferry to odessa

Due to a lack of planning for this trip, which i blame on lines and the ridiculous amount of work involved, sean and i completely failed to book our passage out of istanbul. The plan was to take the ferry to odessa. The ferry only goes once a week, on tuesday evenings, and takes a day and a half. At least, that is what our net research told us. The guy at the tourist office, when we asked about it, said 'ferry cancel, since one year', which worried us. On monday we managed to find the ferry office, and were told that the ferry was fully booked, but that there might be a cancellation. We gave our phone number, and started working out a plan b. We were pleasantly surprised though, to get a phone call the next morning, offering exactly the ticket we wanted (that is, the cheapest), so we packed up, said goodbye to our couchsurfing host, and headed for the office. After buying our tickets we spent the afternoon on the Bosphorus ferries (to start getting our sea legs, of course). We could see our ferry at the dock- the big UKR on the side was easy to spot, but the first time was a little disappointing, as it was parked right next to two of the largest cruise ships i had ever seen. The website had tried very hard to make our boat sound like a cruise ship, so the juxtaposition was a little unfortunate!
After boarding, only 6 hours before departure (don't know why they wanted us on so early!) the impression of luxury continued to plummet, as we discovered the top deck was completely packed with body parts. Well, shop manniquin parts, anyway. And they continued to load things. A small army of men carrying packages on their back up to the rear passenger decks continued working right up to departure. After we left i headed back there to see what they had done, and discovered the sun deck and starboard side deck (the one that had been empty of people, as the view was to port) had also been entirely loaded up with more body party and what was apparently rolls of plastic tablecloth. Such luxury! We were also glad to find we had a cabin with a window, until we looked out the window and saw ladders. Lots of ladders, stacked up and almost completely obscuring amy natural light. On the upside, at least noone would be peering in our window!
The journey was pleasantly relaxing, overall. I did almost all the sleeping and most of the writing and other things i wanted to do. 36 hours of enforced nothingness was great really. They even fed us at regular intervals, and all but one of the meals was edible! We were much entertained by an ascerbic running commentary on the eastern fashions displayed aboard. Marvellous mullets, mismatched stripes, painful colours... There was much to be discussed. We completely failed to be entertained by the disco bar, or by the tacky eastern euro-pop emanating from it. The exchange rate for turkish lira at the snack bar was exceedingly entertaining (the boat works in US dollars), but we discovered that they were a little more reasonable in euro! And the served the best coffee i've had in ages.
So now we've disembarked and are waiting in the ukraine passport control line. In the time it'r taken me to write this on my phone, one person has good through th EU line. The computer was apparently kaput for a while, but even the 5 of up still waiting are settling in for a long wait. If we ever get through, the plan is to find accomodation, food, and internet (to upload this and find out something about odessa, like where to find accomodation and food...). After that, we have to work out how to get to Moldova tomorrow!

england and istanbul

Last saturday, Sean (who worked all 6 weeks at dh) and i flew to istanbul. I hadn't been to istanbul since i lived here in 2005 and 2006. Whenever people ask me if i liked living here, i generally reply that didn't have a great time here, but that i don't think that was istanbul's fault, as it had more to do with the person i was living with! I've been talking for sometime about giving it a second chance, so i sort of came with the idea of seeing if i would like to try living here again. And i think i might. It would be relatively easy, as i've already got some contacts and a start on the language. We'll be back there in about 10 days, and i'll think more about it then.
Our 3 days in istanbul were spent dying of the heat - it was something like 38 degrees! - and seeing the sights, sampling the cuisine and catching up with some of my old friends. I finally got to Topkapi palace- the number one tourist attraction in istanbul, which i had somehow managed to miss before, despite spending 5 months here! It was horribly expensive, and you pay separately to see the harem, which is one of the most interesting bits. Another highlight was seeing the collection of relics. Due to a complete lack of information or map about what was in the palace, we had no idea what was there until we stumbled upon it. It was a lovely surprise to find the actual rod of Moses! The very twig with which he parted the red sea! There was also Abraham's saucepan, which might have been the very one in which the mess of pottage was cooked and sold for a birthright (or whatever- i must look up that story again sometime). I was also amazed to see Joseph's turban, in a nice neutral colour that must have looked lovely when worn with his technicolour dreamcoat.
There was also someone's arm. And a bit of skull. And enough of Mohammed's beard to fleece a horse. And there was an actual person sitting intoning verses from the Qu'ran over them all, which was a nice touch. A sign at the entrance told us that there relics would be preserved as long as the world exists. It's nice that they have something to aim for.

where i've been

I know, i know. It's been ages since i've posted anything that actually said anything, but life has been a little busy. Right now, however, i'm sitting on a 'luxury' ferry from istanbul to odessa, in the middle of the black sea, out of sight of land, enjoying a bit of forced nothingness. So i have time to write.
After leaving berlin, i spent 5 weeks being director of studies at my summer school in hertfordshire. If i can be bothered, i might write something about that on my teaching and learning blog, because it was definitely a learning experience. And a hell of a lot of work. And fun, mostly, although there were definitely some un-fun moments. And i didn't get a lot of sleep.
As Queenswood is only a 5 week school, i went to the old downe house school in Cold Ash for the last week, and, as one of the DoSs there had to leave early, got to be dos again, which was nice, although it did mean a second week of coordinating the packing up. It was good to hang out with the crazy dh crew again, too. They are definitely a little wilder than my qw teachers!

Paris Highlights

My photos from Paris last month are now on flickr.

One of the highlights of the trip was spending an evening with my host sister from my 1996 exchange in Toulouse, Muriel. We hadn't seen each other in 8 years or so, although I've stayed with her parents once or twice in that time. She's developed a little family since then - here she is with Zoe, who was about 3 months old.

Nathaniel and I also finally made it to the Palais de Versailles. We tried to see it way back in December 1999 - the morning after the hurricane that destroyed the gardens and caused the Palais to be closed for months. It only took us 8 years, but we got back there, and they had had time to restore it all in that time, so it's probably just as well we waited!

Other pics include the Fete de la Musique, and the view from the Pompidou Centre, which was definitely worth it - as was the art within, of course!

Caernarfon

My favourite photo from Wales. Many thanks to the random stranger who didn't know she was posing for me...

Time Off

This Sunday, being the beginning of the last week here at Queenswood, there were no students arriving, which meant no placement testing, and no reason to do a single minute of work on a Sunday.
So I didn't do anything. I went to stay with Carollyn and Baska in London on Saturday evening, I watched Ten Canoes (which is brilliant, and having also seen the 'making of' documentary, I am amazed it ever got made at all!), I slept 11 hours, I moved from the bed to the sofa, and then I sat for 6 hours, getting up only twice, absorbing the luxury of internet on my own computer, and doing things like downloading podcasts and uploading photos.
I'm not up to date with the photos yet, but there are a few more "Montreal in May" pics on Flickr, and all of my photos from the few days I spent hitching in Wales in June. Paris and Berlin will follow when I next have internet on my own computer. I'm not too far from being up to date, though, as I have taken a total of about 5 photos since I arrived here at Queenswood a month ago - I'm too busy. It's a pity, really, as I have done a few crazy things, such as dressing up to MC the kids' theatre show every Friday night - I've been a witch and a pirate and an artist and a queen, and I think I'll be Hamlet this week, and I haven't got a single photo of any of them.

How 'bout this then?

Yay for comments on my last-but-one post!
I just had the thought that maybe "101 Places to Go with a Purple Pashmina" might be even better.
But I'm pretty sure I won't get around to doing anything until I've finished work here in about 3 weeks. Or after the travelling I'll be doing for the two (or more) weeks after that.
You can tell it's slightly quieter here already, though, as I have time to write this. Not much time though... And I should begin to spend any free time I have (ha) on planning the aforementioned travelling. We don't have flights or anything yet - just a vague plan about Ukraine and Istanbul. Sean? Are you doing anything about this? As a mere lowly teacher you must have more time than someone as important as moi...
Better get back to work...

Oops

I discovered yesterday, that for the last 3 weeks, I have been washing my clothes in dishwashing powder, a large box of which sits next to the washing machine in our staff kitchen here at Queenswood, tempting all launderers with the handle of a little scoop just visible. It wasn't until I looked for the dishwashing powder to put on a load that I realised my mistake.
Oops.
On the bright side, my clothes are all squeaky clean and streak-free!

Memoirs

I mentioned my "101 things to do with a purple pashmina" list to one of my teachers the other night, and he said "That sounds like the title of a book". Which made me think that maybe it should be. Perhaps if I ever write my memoirs, that should be the name. I think it says something about my lifestyle - everything I own must be multi-purpose so that I don't have to carry much and I make do with the things I have rather than owning more - and my purple pashmina has been with me since my first teaching job in China in 2002, which was the beginning of my current way of life. Also it doesn't come up at all on a google search, which means no one has used it yet, which is nice.
Maybe I should start by changing the name of this blog. I've been looking for a new name for a while. What do you think?

bump

My last post was so depressing that I feel I have to write something, anything, else to bump it down the page. Unfortunately, I'm busy being the Director of Studies at my regular english summer school and don't exactly have time. Today though, being Saturday, I am only working a couple of hours, instead of the usual 15, and I plan to fit in a swim and a sleep as well. The kids are all off on excursion, most of the teachers are away, and most of my work can wait for tomorrow. It's all so quiet! Just as well though, as after 7 days of going non-stop, I needed the rest!

Travelling alone

Travelling alone makes me sad. Or at least thoughtful and nostalgic. Maybe this is why I much prefer having company.
Travelling alone (by which I mean the actual train-plane-bus moving bit, not the staying-in-interesting-places-bit) always gives me this world-weary feeling of moving silently through the crowds, somehow insulated from all their holiday stress and excitement, or business focussed hurry. I'm not a holiday maker, I'm not a business traveller, I'm just a traveller, and this is how I live my life, spending too much time in the airports and bus stations of the world. Spending too much time revisiting places I've already been, countries i know too well to be excited about.
Or maybe it's just bloody england depressing me again...

This time too, though, I think it has to do with leaving places. Leaving Montreal last month, with no idea if I'll be able to return, wasn't easy. Landing directly in London, a place that always freaks me out a bit, just made it so much worse. When Telyn and I parted ways, even though it was a good thing, it felt like saying goodbye to the last piece of Montreal that I had left. And then spending time this week back in Berlin, where I used to live, I realised how similar it is to Montreal, in some ways, and that i would consider living in Berlin again, if I found better work than last time. And now I've left Berlin and the friends and acquaintances i have there, and again landed in bloody London, which is no doubt what is contributing to this depressing bit of wallowing. But at least it's only for a night, until tomorrow, when I'm back in Cold Ash, and all the memories and nostalgia and bloody hard work that will bring!
I really shouldn't travel alone, obviously! It makes me think too much!

Slack

You think I've been slack blogging? I just worked out I hadn't uploaded the pics from my real camera (not the phone) for a month! Pretty much since I got my new phone, actually. Hmm. I wonder if they are connected...
Anyway, I'm working on it now. Bit by bit. Yesterday I uploaded some lovely pics of Montreal from the top of the Olympic Tower, and then I'm just uploading all the pics of the Roller Derby now. Still to come: my going away party (including some pretty mean air-melodica playing) and then Transfabulous in London.
Pics of hitching through Wales, then Paris and Berlin will have to wait until I am reunited with my own computer and can get them off my camera! Which will be soon, thankfully, as I'm fast running out of free memory space on it!

Tonight's dinner- roasted summer vegetables with garlic and balsamic vinegar and italian salad, served on a rooftop terrasse at nathaniel's place. Mmm.

i'm a bad budget traveller

I'm a bad budget traveller. After only 3 hours at frankfurt train station, discovering the one daily bus takes 8 hours, and ringing every number on the rideshare list (and germany basically invented rideshare, so there were a few) i gave in and decided to throw money at the problem. I get on a train in 10mins, and will be in berlin in 4hrs. I know i should hitch or something, but it's only money, and i do like deutsche bahn. I'm just glad i have the resources to splurge like this on occasion, even if it does feel like i'm throwing my principles away for the sake of convenience!

leaving paris

So after my wonderfully relaxing week in paris, i manage to leave in typical disorganised style. Having exhausted rideshare opportunities and decided i wasn't happy doing what would probably end up being 2 days of hitching on my own, i succumbed and decided to take the bus. I carefully checked the website, and turned up at the bus station nice and early to buy a ticket. And found i had misread the time by two hours. That was 19.30, not 9.30. Brilliant. But, as luck would have it there was a bus to frankfurt leaving in less than two minutes, and, once the ticket guy had asked them to wait for me, i was able to buy a ticket and jump on a bus. Which is where i now am. I think that when i arrive at frankfurt, at 6am or so, i will either find another bus, or some internet to arrange an instant rideshare, or a highway to stand on. After all, i'll be practically in berlin, right? and should have no problem getting a ride...?

a week in paris

I've had such a relaxing week in paris. I've hung out with Nathaniel and Sean, avoided doing almost anything touristy, and spent some quality time alone with a net connection, which allowed me to catch up on email and organising for the summer school i have to run from next week...
I feel a lot better than i did before. I think i've been really tense for weeks now. I still have no idea what i'm doing with my life after summer, but at least i seem to have regained some sort of equilibrium, and am more willing to accept whatever happens. And, of course, much as i love my Montreal friends, hanging out with two people who have known me forever (give or take a bit) is a fantastic salve for a stressed-out soul. Of course it would be even better if they didn't burst into peals of laughter everytime i uttered a sentence in french. It does seem that, as i feared, my french accen t has developed a few quebecois features. It's precisely what i expected, of course. But it makes conversation difficult.
On to berlin next, which will be odd, as the last time i was there was when i was living there in 2005, but i'm definitely looking forward to it!

A vision from 1934

collect the set

i'm currently in the pompidou centre in Paris, which, i've just worked out, continues my collection of the world's greatest modern art galleries this year. In the last year i've been to the tate in london, the moma in new york and san fran, and the Guggenheim in new york.
Pics already on flickr! Now i have to see the rest of the centre...

travel blog

so while i'm limited to net access on my phone, clois will be short and sweet. I am, however, uploading pics whenever i can on flickr, so keep an eye on the feed to the left here!
I'm currently sitting in intermittent sun in betws y coed, having had 2 long sides from brecon, just finished lunch and ice cream and are about to hike along a trail in snowdonia national park to find the highway again.
Caernarfon tonight!

In Wales

So you'll just have to wait for all the promised catch up later. Too busy travelling now. And not getting enough net access.

I successfully left Montreal, though my memories of doing so are all a bit hazy...

Landed in London, seriously short of sleep, and got thoroughly pissed off my the transport system within the first half hour (as per usual). Stayed with the wonderful Carollyn and Baska, who were fantastic as usual, and the 4 of us (Telyn, Carollyn, Baska and I) spent the weekend mostly at the wonderful Transfabulous festival, the highlight of which (for me at least) was the borderfuckers cabaret by the people from Belgrade pride. Maybe I'll actually manage to go there this year.

Left london this morning, literally at a run (I really, *really* hate london transport, and the tube). Miraculously managed to catch our bus, though we got thoroughly yelled at by the bus conductor for being two minutes late.

Got off in cardiff, had lunch under the castle walls, and then managed to hitch as far as brecon, via castle coch.

Tomorrow, we might make it to snowdonia!

Anyone want to buy a guitar?

08/06/2008
Originally uploaded by Ptraci

Half size 'toy', going cheap... Only missing one string...

I took this photo for the ad on craigslist, but I think it turned out rather scenic, so I thought I'd post it here, too.

Catch-up Marathon Part II

More from the last week...
Last Wednesday I climbed the Olympic tower with Emma. Well, hardly climbed. Went up in the wonderfully 70s futuristic elevator (you don't have a choice). It was nice to see Montreal from a different angle. And I could see several of my houses from there - or at least the streets they were on! Afterwards Em and I dropped in to say hi at the Rhizome, which is nearby, but decided to not stay long, and came home and cooked dinner and had a night in instead.

Thursday morning, after a pleasant brunch (I love doing brunch!) I waved Emma off, as she was heading to Mont Tremblant for a few days, then in the evening I went to see a klezmer band that consists of 3 people, two of whom I know, though I didn't realise *they* knew each other (Montreal is so like that) and the third reminded me so much of Kate (but I don't mean the psycho bits). It was a bit weird. Turns out cultural heritage really means something. Oi.

Vivent les Vélorutionnaires

Friday I worked *alll* day (it's hard when you're used to part time!) and then joined other cyclists for Critical Mass, the monthly reclaim-the-streets-for-cyclists ride around the city. I didn't have a bike until this month (thanks Emily!), so this is the first one I've managed to go to in Montreal (though I also got to do one in Vancouver last September). There are photos and little videos to give you the feel of it here, along with a few from Vancouver, just for good measure. The Vancouver one in September was considerably bigger, but it was later in the season, and the one immediately after bike month, which is always the biggest of the year, I think. Here in Montreal, this is only the second month I've heard people getting excited about it. I'm told Critical Mass happens all through winter here, but it's a much smaller, more dedicated group of cyclists willing to do the dark, snowy winter rides! Still, plenty of people at this one, though - certainly more than enough to stop traffic!

Talent Share
After Critical Mass, (and a brief stop at at a pub for a beer with some choir people I knew would be there, and then home for a shower and food) I headed to my friend Aaron's for Le Salon, a bring-your-own-talent night. It was a great idea, and one I think I will have to emulate sometime int he future, although I'm not sure how well it would work in any other city. This city is just so full of talented people!
We heard lots of music, of course, including the "Farewell to Nova Scotia" I had in my head all last week, and which started a whole string of folk songs from around the world. And three of the "Men of Maha" and Julie our lovely guitarist did I'm Your Man again, of course. And a lovely couple whose names I completely missed did a few beatbox & vocals duets of children's songs one of them had written, which was sweet. There was also some poetry - Poe's El Dorado, and then I recited Hilaire Belloc's Tarantella, which I hadn't done in years, and which has such a great beat to it that we decided to try it again with the beatboxing, which actually sort of worked!
And then, one of the most-appreciated talents: Aaron made the most amazing *vegan* chocolate cheese cake. That is a talent I intend to acquire!

More to come soon, including: The Roller Derby, Fringe For All, more marching band stuff...

For some reason this pleases me

Even though it only got me a measly 13 points, putting down the word "bassoon" was somehow satisfying. And I'm winning anyway, so I don't need the points...

Engrish

I read Engrish every day, and don't usually feel the need to blog about it. But today's is just brilliant.
Glad we got that all cleared up then.

Catch-up Marathon Part I

There are two reasons for lack of activity on my blog - either excess of activity in my life, or lack of activity in my brain.
The last few weeks have mostly been the former, although the few times that I probably would have had time to blog, I think I was suffering the latter.
Here's a quick run down of a couple of things I did last week. Not everything, but hopefully this post will have a part II to get through the rest of the week.

1. Work (the boring one first) - it's been crazy, but the office is now moved, we've escaped from the Greek Mafia and have possibly probably found a replacement for me (just as well as I leave here next Wednesday, and have no intention of working after Friday!)

2. Meow Mix. I know I blogged about this already, but I've put up a heap more little videos of the other acts from the night on flickr. Click on the photo here to see the names of the acts we were on with. It was a most entertaining set of acts! My videos are not the full acts, just little snippets of them, flickr style. Including my favourite from Big Moves, which I like so much I think I will post part of it here.

I'm always impressed when people actually sing. And I can't believe that I leave here the day before their show in the Montreal Fringe Festival opens - it's called "Lard" because it's like grease, but thicker...

3. On Monday Emma showed up all of a sudden, so I got to play tourist for a few days! It was good - I managed to see the Basilica and climb the Olympic tower and go up the mountain again, so I sort of feel I have done the vital tourist things in Montreal.

4. Last Tuesday the wonderful Elvi (Hi Elvi!) threw me and Aideen (who is also leaving) a Choeur Maha going away party. We made use of the huge pile of sweaters she provided and braved the freezing weather (it got to 4 degrees that night - ridiculous! This is supposed to be *summer*!) to sit in her beautiful backyard, over in NDG, a part of town I hadn't been to before (another thing ticked of the 'must do before I leave' list!). To get there Emma and I caught a metro across town and then a bus even further west. On the bus I had this weird experience where I looked around and no one I could see looked french. And I couldn't hear any french being spoken. And all the books I could see were in English. It was like being in another city or country or something. But then I looked out the window and was reassured by all the french signage. Thank goodness for Quebec language laws!

Anyway, the party was great, the food was good, it was nice to see all the Maha people again. And I got to play Guitar Hero, which very kindly informed me at the end of my song "You Rock!". I was most chuffed. I also got wonderful presents! A luggage tag! A real one, made of plastic, and not the cardboard freebies I have to replace all the time! And it has the Quebec flag on it! And I got pencils patterned with the fleur de lis (they only write in french...) and the most wonderful maple butter, and some tissues with the Canadiens logo (it's a hockey thing). AND, Elvi (having obviously had far too much free time in the last few months) had read enough of my blog to notice my Engrish fetish, and, remembering this photo, presented me with two cans of coffee:

The only thing we failed to do was sing! A whole bunch of women from choir, and we failed to sing. Well, except for Auld Lang Syne, which shouldn't count.


And just because it's been stuck in my head all week (thanks to Rosemary and Mel), here's a version of "Farewell to Nova Scotia" I rather like. Very Living End, really. And more interesting than the traditional version.