History Week

In the past I've had superbly few motivations to visit Poland, the one very important exception, however, has been the chance to see Auschwitz.  So when we decided to spend some time in Krakow as means to visit the old concentration camp, I was pleasantly surprised at just how charming this country is.  Krakow is reminiscent of Prague with it's old, stately architecture but lacks the sheer multitude of tourists (and drug dealers) this time of year.  There were local artisan markets, outdoor cafes and mouth watering sausage vendors everywhere you looked.  What else could a girl ask for?  Besides an ex-Nazi concentration camp that is.

Auschwitz is about what you would expect.  We all know the horrible story; hundreds of thousands of Jews enslaved, tortured and killed.  It's where the Nazis first experimented with Cyclone B in those infamous showers.  It's depressing and sad, just like it should be.  It's also an important part of history to learn from and a humbling place to visit.  No one was expecting a trip to Disneyland.  Unless you count several of the other tourists in our tour group.

At Auschwitz it is compulsory to have an official tourist guide take you through the complex.  In addition to the valuable information, it is also for another very good reason; your average tourist is a douche bag.  The kind of insensitive moron that will still take pictures even when the free guide explicitly instructs them not to.  I felt weird enough joining the masses of tourists to be herded around what is now a memorial site, but how else do you get a chance to see this monumental part of history?  Then you get there and your fears are confirmed in the form of those camera toting sons-of-bitches who take prohibited pictures of the human remains.  It's such a intense mix of emotions, it's hard to know where to draw the line.  At least the museum had enough tact to not call the souvenir shop a "souvenir shop".  Rather the building just listed all the things you could normally find in a gift shop, "Information, Videos and More!"  Ok, I exaggerated with the exclamation point, but that doesn't make it any less true.  I personally had my eye on the "I Survived Auschwitz" t-shirt, but it only came in an XL.  Ok, ok, there's the line, I see it way back there now.

Donning our new t-shirts (I kid, I kid) we headed for a pick me up in Berlin, Germany.  Berlin is just a (Pacific Northwesters you should cover your ears here) bigger, cooler version of Portland, Oregon.  This is with the brief exception of the blatant racism that exists here (Portland at least hides it better).  Apparently Berlin recovered from their jewish prejudices and turned around and redirected them to the black and middle eastern population.  We saw and heard too many stories of minorities being denied entry into local bars and clubs on the basis of their race.  This was a disheartening discovery after I had already decided I loved this city so full of art, thriving coffee shops and hipsters (side note:  Kelly and I were devastated to find out that we had missed the Berlin Hipster Olympics by a mere two days...you know we would have killed it in the Beer Crate Racing event).

We did get to see the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall though and I even got my official piece of scrap concrete that was once part of the wall (look what good tourists we've become!).  This chunk of cement was an actual souvenir I could get on board with some how.  Well, besides that t-shirt (that's the last one I swear!).  The art on the remaining part of the Berlin Wall combined with the massive amounts of really interesting, quality street art is so fascinating that we found ourselves walking for many, many hours each day.  I left my legs somewhere in East Berlin last week and have yet to recover them.  So, in conclusion, I think I love Berlin...I'm pretty sure...I like it at least more than a friend.

International Rendezvous

I've officially named this phase of the trip European Rendezvous.  It all started with meeting Weird Kate in Moldova in May, followed by Maggie in Hungary and then, good god, the remaining mass of our friends since then.  After a few brief days of solitude in Salzburg, we traveled to Munich only to immediately delve back into the life of an international socialite.  

If you can remember way back to New Zealand, where this crazy trip all started, you will recall that we spent quite a bit of time on an amazing farm on the north island.  That's where we fell in love with our friend Anna who showed us how making dinner could be a five hour event in which four of those is actually spent gossiping over several bottles of wine.  You might also remember that it was her son of a bitch roommate (I say that with much love) who duped us into kissing those famous goat balls.  As fate would have it, Anna was in Germany visiting her German boyfriend, Joschi (who also worked on the farm while we were there) and we got to hang out with them in Munich for a couple days.  Having a personal translator is not overrated.  

The last (and only) time I was in Germany I spent three days in Munich and I never actually saw Munich.  This requires and you deserve a thorough explanation - Oktoberfest 2005.  On my last day in the city I woke up with a traditional German beer stein, a technicolor Oktoberfest commemorative t-shirt and a hangover on which to compare all future hangovers.  So, yeah, I've been to Germany before, but I'm sure glad I had a chance to redeem myself.  

Upon meeting up with Anna and Joschi they wasted no time sweeping us off to the nearest German beer garden where they sell those famous kiddy pool sized beers (this stereotype turns out to be true...along with the unbridled wearing of lederhosen).  And all these years I thought that kind of consumption was reserved only for Oktoberfest.  Turns out the germans prefer Paul Bunyan scaled beverages year round.  After a few goliath steins, it was comforting to see that our friends haven't changed that much.  The conversation turned for the worse (better?) when Anna and Joschi started having an argument over whether "Robin" or "Thor" is a gayer name for your first born son.  This all brought on my Joschi who insists that his first child will bear the unfortunate and beating inspiring name, Robin.  I guess you could say that I'm on Team Thor.  

Anna's other hot international relationship is with her credit card.  If you turn your back on them for one second you will find yourself with five fresh drinks and a heaping basket of fried food.  I love/hate it when she does that.  When Anna found out the pub we were at had a credit card minimum, poor Kelly fell victim by proximity (within shouting distance of Anna) and ended up taking the two tequila shots Anna had to order to fulfill the required minimum.  So it will come as no surprise when I tell you that we found ourselves at three o'clock in the morning sprinting through Munich's massive fountain in the main square.  Making for a long, soaking wet, freezing cold walk home.  No amount of liquid long johns (even tequila) could have negated this cold.  Which is actually not so bad  when compared to the next day when I remembered that I am a hobo living out of a backpack and those are my ONLY pair of shoes.  I begrudgingly put them on anyway so I could go get a lifesaving German sausage and cup of coffee the next morning.  Squish, squish, squish.

Thank god (or not) our next stop this week was to the city of the green fairy; the city of Absinth; Prauge.  While Prague might be famous for it's hallucinogenic liquors, we were in no shape to partake after our fountain fun in Munich...mostly.  Well, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't a least help Kelly take her first ever shot of Absinthe?  In reality we spent most of our time sightseeing, working out and enjoying sobriety.  I know, I know, you want a better story than the We-Went-Home-Early-and-Knitted-by-the-Fire kind of a story, but my liver respectfully says, "suck it".  Therefore you'll have to imagine us traipsing through the city viewing the ornate architecture, listening to classical music and sipping espresso by the picturesque river that runs through the city.  Oh yeah, after all this time, that still IS an awesome story.  

"The Fountain"

Then There Were Two...Again

Four happens to be my favorite number, that is until this week when our brood was knocked down to a mere quartet.  Not to say that amazing things haven't been accomplished by groups of four, just look at The Beatles, The Spice Girls and quite possibly the most impacting foursome of our time: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It's just that is was amazing how quickly I got used to traveling with an entourage that would put 50 Cent's posse to shame.  With less than half our original man power, we still did our best to make our "four-fathers" proud. 

We ditched the hubbub of Slovenia's capital city for some R&R at Lake Bled.  Lake Bled is a glacial lake nestled in the Julian Alps.  It's reminiscent of the home in the Pacific North West mainly due to the relaxing atmosphere, affinity for outdoor activities and down right adorableness (that's right PNW, I think you're adorable too).  Since the majority of our nature activities lately have consisted of drinking outside as opposed to inside, we decided to shell out some Euro to have a someone else reacquaint us with Mother Nature by going white water rafting.  

When we get to the rafting launch site with 50 other nature challenged tourists the rafting company is dividing everyone up into various raft groups.  I'm praying in my head, "please no fucking children, please no fucking children, please no fucking children".  I feel this way for several reasons. First off, children are useless as part of a rowing team with their spindly, undeveloped muscles and general lack of work ethic (thanks a lot Xbox).  Secondly, they are constantly falling out of the rafts and most of society still believes you should interrupt your fun to save them from drowning.  Third of all, I may have one of the worst cases of turrets and no parent wants to subject their child to my colorful sailor's vocabulary.  Nor do I want to sensor myself while being thrown around in a glorified pool floaty.  In the end, my faithful praying payed off and zero children were assigned to our vessel.  Instead of useless children, we were assigned three useless young adults.  The one "man" of the group was positioned at the front of the raft where you need your strongest rowers.  Our guide incorrectly assumed that the lone male of the group would be up for the job.  The poor fella had probably never seen a gym in his life and looked like he had a serious phobia of eating.  So our group of four ex-rugby players were put on one side of the raft and Team Beanpole on the other side.  This all causing a noticeable and consistent drift to one side.  One of the gangly girls just stopped rowing at some point as well, enhancing the already embarrassing deficit.  The trip was actually incredibly fun and gorgeous out on the river.  Not to mention the ego stoking brought on from our superior rowing strength.  And luckily only one child fell out in the end; Kelly Brittan.

Then there were two.  Kelly and I on our own again.  So we went to where any rational person would go to ease the pain.  That is the home of The Sound of Music; Salzburg, Austria (also the country that brought us Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that fact is not nearly as uplifting and certainly less musical).  We weren't able/refused to pay for the official Sound of Music tour.  I shamefully have to admit here, and don't tell my mother, I don't particularly even like The Sound of Music.  Never mind that I can sing every single song.  It's just that no family actually talks to each other that civilly/sappily/cornily.   Then the movie tries to imply that all seven kids actually get along long enough to coordinate enough song and dance to fill the THREE overdrawn hours of that movie.  I hardly think so.  Growing up I remember stabbing my sister with a fork the first day into our summer vacation (which was all evened out when she hit me in the face with a shovel sometime later).  If you were to contain seven Gust children (thank god there were only two of us) in the Austrian countryside with no other friends, you better believe someone would have contracted a permanent limp and nobody would be singing about it.  "Bright swollen bruises and fresh sewn stitches.  Lopsided ankles and new gleaming crutches.  Internal bleeding from repeated beatings.  These are a few of my favorite things!".  Yet, Kelly still made me watch in anyway.  As they say; when in Salzburg, do as the Schwarzeneggers do...minus the whole cheating on your wife and having a secret love child part.  

Salzburg's Horsewash!

The United States of Slovenia

Typically there is a week delay on most of my posts.  For example, when I wrote about Croatia I was already well into Bosnia.  You may have been keen enough to see through my masterful illusions, but I think it warrants mention since I am belated in wishing the United States of America a very happy birthday.  

When I studied abroad in Italy in 2005, Ljubljana, Slovenia, was a big hot spot to visit on the weekends.  It's close proximity to Italy, it's charming character and probably what was most attractive to me when I was 21, the 5-star night life.  I'd been boasting about Ljubljana to all of my friends for years now and was excited to get a chance to show her off as a city and a country that doesn't necessarily get a lot of attention from US travelers.  Then I got really nervous that it wouldn't live up to my hype.  Good god, I was only a 21 year old drunkard.  Did I even do anything else besides sample that famous night life?  

It was a huge sigh of relief when we got to Ljubljana and found that the city had improved since I'd been here (with the slight exception that they have converted to the Euro since my last visit and the used-to-be cheap prices have been Euro-fied).  The adorable city has a new bike share program where you can rent cute, basket equipped cruisers by the hour.  There are genius bike "parking lots" all over the city where you can acquire a bike through an automated machine similar to, but less frustrating than the automated parking meter.  Bike rental is even free if you use it for under an hour!  For years I lived in Portland, Oregon; the mecca of biking.  A town that is so bikable and full of earth conscious hippies that it is becoming uncool to even look at a car.  Frankly, Ljubljana is kicking Portland's cycling ass.  Needless to say, our group of five spent many afternoons singing the entire score from the Sound of Music while riding along the cobblestone streets on our family bike ride.  I'm sure the locals thought it was just as adorable as I am describing it.  

Ljubljana, of course, also proved to be the perfect location for Independence Day.  My friend, Kyle, has thrown an annual 4th of July 4Beer-4K for the past 11 years and being in another country was not going to stop her from celebrating our freedom properly.  Kyle's god given talent for creating elaborate scavenger hunts is rivaled by no one else.  No one.  In one morning, and in an unfamiliar city no less, she threw together an elaborate four hour adventure that would put Toby Keith's patriotism to shame.  Donning our best American flag attire we unscrambled clues, found important American landmarks (yes, even in Slovenia) and sang patriotic songs in front of the embassy.  It is measure of my commitment to a costume when I tell you that I found and have been carrying my 4 of July outfit since Thailand.  No, I didn't use that precious space in my backpack for a useful pair of underwear or a practical pair of pants.  No, no, my friends, a sequined American flag mini dress took obvious priority.  The biggest surprise was that many of the locals not only knew it was our independence day, but also were overly excited about our choice of attire (the one exception being a angsty teenager who made loud, animated barfing noises at us).  We ended the escapade at the hilltop castle overlooking the city where the waiter was so elated he brought us free wine, free shots AND free dessert.  Who says freedom ain't free?

Kelly and I, feeling like hot garbage juice after the hearty celebrating, decided we were overdue for some proper exercise.  We went to the local gym to sweat off the booze in a Zumba class.  Zumba is probably the most ridiculous form of exercise (don't get me wrong, I love this shit) as it is just dancing, or flailing about in my case, to awesome pop and hip-hop music.  There are definitely legitimate aerobic advantages to this class, but no one is trying to claim that this is any sort of Olympic lifting program here.  Our instructor was a freakishly fit, energetic and down right hot lady who preceded to kick my ass.  She did compliment(?) Kelly and I though by telling us that we danced like ho-bags.  Only after the class do we find out that Miss Fitness holds the coveted designation as Slovenia's Playmate of the Year.  A playmate calling us hos?  If mom's not proud of that, well I at least know several friends who will be jealous.  Especially now that I'm about to mention that we also saw her naked in the showers and didn't even have to pay the $4.95 for the magazine.  God bless Slovenia, let freedom ring!  

Two Names, Two Faces

It's been hard to muster up the energy to write these last few posts when half (most?) of the readers have been in my actual company these last few weeks.  Plus, I'll type up a post and then they just want me to read it to them!  I just spent hours, hours I tell you, typing this up and now I have to be the kindergarden librarian too?  These guys were all there, they know the stories already, but being the generous person that I am, I'll go ahead and put this in writing for the few others of you.

Our massive group of vagabonds had the opportunity move to yet another gorgeous city in Croatia since the country is teeming with blue seas, relaxing cafes and sun.  But all that fun, sun and water comes with a beach front price.  We'd been hearing about many other wonderful little Eastern Europe countries.  The group consensus landed us in a country that I had never initially considered, but along the road I've heard that it was amazing, warm and fun.  I also heard it was cheap.  So when the decision was made, we changed course for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is indeed cheap, but also amazingly cute...the parts amid the abandoned bombed buildings.  We hit Mostar and Sarajevo this last week and you can still see the fresh wreckage of bullet ridden buildings in-between all of the newly constructed hotels and cafes.  It is completely bazar to meet people my age and younger, who grew up in Bosnia and Herzegovina  during the fairly recent war.  A time I vaguely remember watching on TV, my peers remember spending their childhood scrambling across the streets avoiding gunfire.  A lot of them lost their parents or siblings or both.  It's easy to be on this no-rules, no-responsibility trip and forget about just how ravaged many of these countries are from very recent and very real times of violence.  

I'm glad to say, however, it seems that Bosnia and Herzegovina is bouncing back.  I realize the conflicting gramalitical "is" when combined with the deul names, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but afterall it is just the one country with aparent naming conflicts.  Plus, I'm no english major and don't pretend to know the proper way to handle this situation; I can barely spell my own name as it is.  The good news is that the shopping districts are bustling, there is an abundance of new construction and there are thriving ice-cream stands on every single corner.  Ice-cream to my outsider's perspective is a staple in Bosnia and Herzegovina for breakfast, lunch, dinner and where I commonly associate it- dessert.  No judgement.  Hell, after all those years of war you deserve to have ice-cream as one of your major food groups.

We were also lucky enough to be in Sarajevo during a major cultural event.  You guessed it, the annual Streetdancing Competition.  It was a real life breakdancing battle with professional judges in the city center.  Talk about age innapropriate events, we were surrounded by hordes of teenagers who were almost as excited as we were to be there.  I wasn't expecting much, but the break dancers were phenominal.  I should mention that it is no longer cool to be called a "break dancer" and you should refer to them as "b-boys" and "b-girls"; yet another distinction that shows our age in this event.  It is somewhat inspirational in that it made me want to take classes so I could throw my body around in a way that makes it look amazingly agile and awesome.  And mostly because I'd just like to have a solid party trick.  Then I realized that I'm almost 30, have had two knee surgeries and am simply not that cool.  My short lived dreams of being a b-girl have been crushed.  At least the music was good and none of the local teenagers could tell how much we were dorking out since they didn't speak english.  My cool facade is intact for now.  

As we reached the end of our time in Bosnia and Herzegovina our gang of loud Americans continued to decline.  We went from nine down to six this week; a flock to a mere six-pack.  I know I previously referenced traveling with that many people as a complete shit show, but now that the group is dwindling, it's pretty sad.  This must be what it feels like to be on a season of Survivor.  With the exception that I actually like these people, nobody has to eat bugs in order to stay on the island and my only alliances are based on who wants to go get ice-cream now or later.    

Adorable!

And ravaged.

Croatia You Crazy

I previously alluded to my plans to meet up with a gaggle of my friends this month.  Well, it all came to a big festering head when eight of my closest friends and myself met up in Croatia this week.  The mass reunion took place on Vis Island in one of the most darling villas I've ever seen (not that I've actually stayed in a proper villa before, especially on this hobo trip).  The house is literally five steps away from the turquoise Adriatic Sea, which happens to be extremely convenient when you go late night skinny dipping and you have the kind of friends that will steal your towel.

It has certainly been different traveling with nine people when compared to our meager duo.  It's something akin to herding a bunch of drunk, ferrel cats.  Also, nine loud American girls shockingly draws even more attention than Kelly and I are used to.  After a few days of the villa and convenience beach lifestyle we finally managed to get the whole group out of the house for drinks one night (again, see above cat herding reference).  We were caught off guard when an even larger and louder english speaking group sidled up to the tables adjacent to us.  How dare they out-tourist us.  The group of hooligans turned out to be a cricket team from England who were on the island for a game.  I wouldn't have imagined the tiny island of Vis having a cricket team, but there you go.  Not to be outdone, we were quick to tell them that we all played rugby, a far superior sport.  Nevertheless they invited us to watch the could-be all day long game the next day.  Despite our feelings of sport superiority, we accepted the invite with the stipulation that it did not interfere with our packed schedule of beach time.   

The next day on the way to a beach on the other side of the island, we ran into the cricket field by sheer chance.  They were already hours into the match and were about to stop for tea (this sport is excruciating long like baseball, but with added boringness of being a gentlemen's sport).  They humored us enough to let the rowdy rugby ladies play with their equipment during their tea break.  When they took the field again, we heckled and harassed the other team like good old sport-loving Americans (though I'm not sure who we were yelling at half the time since both teams wear white).  To be culturally sensitive though, we yelled things like "wanker" and "parky".  We stayed for as much cricket as we could handle before we finally "had" to leave for our original destination.  The beach wasn't going to wait all day for us.  

We ended up at an adorable remote beach in a small inlet.  We lucked out in that one of the residences ran a restaurant out of their cliff side house.  This was not the kind of restaurant with menus or timetables or pants.  In fact, the chef was lounging in his speedo out front when we first arrived.  This was explained as a "slow-dining" experience and the crazy-eyed, bearded chef simply told us he would cook us something that was caught fresh and would just bring out dishes as they were ready.  How could we say no to a traditional sea-side dining experience?  Awesome homemade cheeses, olives, smoked fishes and capers...for starters.  And the food just kept coming in-between the bottles of wine.  At one point there was time for a mid-dinner swim and then back to eating once again.  This was simultaneously the fanciest and most casual dinner I've ever been apart of.  After dinner the chef and owner insisted we have some of their homemade brandy followed by some of their homemade grappa and then another round of some other homemade liquor.  At one point during our after dinner swim (if there's a mid-dinner swim, surely there has to be an after dinner swim) they sent shots of grappa out on a floating tray to the swimmers.  I kept having to remind our generous hosts that I was the driver.  Their solution was to give me a "driver" size shot instead.  Croatians, the booze pushers of Europe.

And if there weren't enough reasons to booze on this trip...my birthday was this week.  Like we just learned, the Croatians are booze pushers and the locals were more than willing to buy celebratory drinks.  Come to find out the Czechs are also part of the enable ring category.  A group of guys from the Czech Republic had sailed into Vis Island that day and happened upon the same bar.  After Maggie broke the ice by commandeering one of the guy's wheelchairs and showing off her mad wheelchair skills (no joke, Maggie is actually a pro in a wheelchair and can dance, spin and pop wheelies, much to the crowd's enjoyment).  Like all good birthdays, we closed the bar down and promptly continued the party on the Czech sailboat.  So at 3:00 am we found ourselves drinking boxed wine and listening to a bunch of drunk sailors singing "Happy Birthday" about 527 times in their Czech accent.  The first few hundred times it came out as, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear I-don't-remember-your-naaaaaaammme, happy birthday to you".  Eventually (and impressively considering the level of inebriation on everyones' part) they got my name right in the end.  I'm sure I can safely say that will be my only birthday I spend on a Croatian island cocktailing on a sailboat with a group of rowdy Czechs.  Now I can die happy.  Coincidentally that is exactly what I felt like doing the next day.  The extra year was acutely evident as I was too hungover to even make it the five steps to the beach the next day.  O.U.C.H.

Shots!