Aegina

Aegnia
Saturday, August 22, 2009
1:26 AM

So as I realized I had essentially seen everything there was to see in Athens the day before, so I followed conventional wisdom and headed out to an island. While I initially wanted to go to Ios, it was an eight hour boat ride which was not a reasonable amount of time considering that I needed to be careful with how much time I was spending in places as I eventually have a flight to catch. I settled on Aegnia which is one of the closest islands to Athens, and also one of the cheapest to get to.

I jumped on the ferry and had an hour and change boat ride that was really pleasant. Once I got onto the island I saw what people were talking about with the charm factor. It actually reminded me quite a bit of Catalina, which is also pretty damn charming. I walked down the boardwalk, grabbed a quick bite, and ensued the people watching. I knew it was a proper seaside town as old men dressed head to toe in white walked by with girls 20 years younger than them wearing skimpy dresses and huge heels. The entire boardwalk was packed and not much English was being spoken, which judging from what people say about the other islands, was a good thing.

Once I started getting a bit sleepy I walked away from the marina and main beach and found a nice area and set up camp. It was really pleasant to watch the lights of the city twinkling and the stars shining while listening to the sea flirt with the island, I slept very well.

Athens

Athens
Friday, August 21, 2009
1:26 AM

Once I got into Athens I walked around a bit until I could find some WiFi so I could get directions to the hostel I had reserved in Sofia. It ended up being a quick walk from the train station but since I arrived so early they didn't have any beds ready. I figured this would be a great opportunity to check out the Acropolis early. After settling in a bit and catching up with my Dad, I headed out to see what there was to see.

The hostel was also situated on the main street of Athens, which runs straight into the Acropolis even though it’s a bit of a walk. I was skeptical of the claim that the city only needed as quick of a run through as you could do on your way to the islands but I quickly found out that there was a lot of truth to that statement. Athens is massive and full, of, concrete. Aside from the flea market around the Acropolis it is just urban sprawl with little or no character.

The ruins around the Acropolis were pretty damn cool though. Walking around the grounds that formed the core of Western society is pretty sweet. The one huge downfall was that I definitely realized that I was out of Eastern Europe as the crowds were absurd. I had taken Sarajevo, Belgrade for granted. I even griped a bit about Budapest being filled with tourists, but Athens brought me back to reality quickly, it was packed. The Parthenon itself is also very impressive just because its huge and it was made so long ago. As it is up on a hill, you can see the entire city of Athens which is a great sight.

After walking around a bit more I checked in to the hostel and took a nap as I hadn't gotten much sleep on the rough train. When I got up in the early evening I headed back down to the Acropolis and checked out the museum that had opened only a month before. Admission was free with a Student ID and only 1 Euro without one, it was pleasant to see that people weren't being gorged. On the way back to the hostel I ended up getting lost in the 'Old City' streets which was fine as it was great a great place to people watch. Back at the hostel I ended up going out with a few people and had a good time.

Sofia to Athens

Sofia to Athens
Thursday, August 20, 2009
1:25 AM

The train to Sofia was really comfortable but it ended up being the most stereotypically eastern European of the bunch. In the morning when we arrived everyone was in an uproar as they had all been robbed. In every compartment in the train, aside from mine, cell phones and cameras had been stolen. The English kid in my compartment figured that the thieves didn’t want to deal with an American. I figured the thieves were gypsies and I look like a gypsy any way so they didn't rob their own kind.

I ended up walking around Sofia with the kid from my compartment as he had a guidebook and there were no tourist maps to be found at the train station. It ended up that it was a pretty damn big day for him as he was to receive the results of his standardized test scores. In England, schools give conditional acceptance offers that depend on second semester of senior year scores. In Stephen's case he was admitted to the London School of Economics (one of the finer institutions in the world) but to ensure he kept his spot he needed to get a score of three A's.

Although he said the tests had been watered down quite a bit and three A's wasn't tough to come by, the fact that you could be rescinded admission less than a month before you started school would have stressed me out. He was waiting on a call from his parents but ended up checking online when we got to a hostel and seeing that he had done well and was in, which was cause for a few hoots and hollars. Speaking of the hostel, it was the best I've seen and had it not been completely booked I would have spent a night there.

Instead we ended up walking around town and he caught an early train out to another Bulgarian city. I stuck around a bit more and waited on the night train to Athens. Sofia itself seemed to be a pretty small city but it was very charming. All the main streets were tree lined with cafes and a solid vibe. Being hungry I jumped off the main streets and stumbled into a hole in the wall that was full of Bulgarians. I ordered some sort of meat patty thing with a cabbage salad that was delicious. After that I sat at a café for a bit and downloading a season of HBO Entourage while I sipped and people watched. The first leg of the Athens train was dead which was a pleasant surprise.

I spent a big chunk of the ride bullshitting with a girl who was a triple citizen of Mexico, Portugal, and the US who was a Stanford Cardinal and noticed my assortment of UCLA paraphernalia. I'm proud but it is admittedly ridiculous as I wear UCLA shorts most of the time, had a UCLA binder out, and have a UCLA sticker on my laptop. The second leg of the trip to Athens was absurd and the train was almost as crowded as the festival train to Budapest. We ended up staying in the eating car for almost the whole ride which was full of smokers so it was kinda rough. In one of the most entertaining scenes yet almost 10 guys were taken through the train handcuffed to each other by Greek police officers, we got into the city safely.

Beograd to Sofia

Beograd to Sofia
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
8:45 PM

So Wednesday was to be my last day in the BGD as well as Marko's last full one. We headed down to the river and got lunch with Mike Cavic at one of his favorite restaurants. We had a delicious ham and cheese wrap that I'd liken to a giant hot-pocket. While the food seemed bad it was fine for him because he was at the start of taking a full two months off from swimming. It was interesting hearing stories about Mike's life since he's been living in Serbia. Perhaps the most interesting thing was that he really hasn't been living there much.

Although he recently got his own apartment it isn't complete yet, and for the majority of the time since he finished undergrad he has been on the road. While I've always thought that I'd be fine doing something that requires heavy travel (and I still think I would be while I'm young) I definitely saw that living out of suitcases and hotels wears on you. I also always think its interesting to get analysis of cities from expats because its easy to draw comparisons. Mike, like most everyone I've talked to, also doesn't understand how people live in such an expensive city on such meager salaries. Apparently apartments in nicer neighborhoods start around $150k for a tiny studio and go up from there.

After lunch Marko went to visit his grandparents and I went back to the apartment and started getting my stuff in order. Jovanna came over again and we went down to the fortress so I could buy some postcards which I hope I send out by Italy. Although it is easy to stay in touch thanks to the internet I still think postcards are a nice 'hey I was thinking of you' kind of gesture. Once we finished up, Aunt Tetka served us one last delicious dinner, and I jumped on my train to Sofia.

Cafes and Such

Cafes and Such
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
6:56 AM

We had another day without anything too specific as Marko was flying to Paris on Thursday and I was trying to work out my schedule for the rest of trip but had failed to do it up to this point (semi-busy without internet access). In the afternoon we met up with one of his friends who was in med school in Belgrade and just had gotten back from a vacation in Egypt where she said the sea life was amazing. As the bulk of the conversation was in Serbian I took some time to watch the café television that was showing reruns of ESPN Bassmaster competitions. I found it both interesting and awesome to watch such a decidedly American (at least in presentation) sporting event in a foreign country.

I snuck out a bit early to get some initial travel planning work done and to work on catching up the old weblog a bit. I did have one beneficial finding though, flying from Italy to London then to Dublin would actually be a little bit cheaper than flying straight to Dublin. I've always wanted to check London out, and while it is still disgustingly expensive the pound is weaker than it has been in the past so it is as good an opportunity as any. When Marko got back I readied up to take a jog and we met with Jovanna who was in from Cacak in preparation for an English test that she was going to have to take.

We took a bus down to the Danube and stopped in at Marko's favorite restaurant where they posted while I hit the trail. I took a fairly long loop down the river and around the man-made lake and for no real reason it reminded me of Greater Phoenix's beloved Tempe Town Lake. We had been to the lake for a quick glance earlier in the trip but it was nice to get a look around it. Most of the lake was surrounded by restaurants and clubs and they all looked really nice. When I got back to the restaurant we grubbed a bit.

Marko and Jovanna went out but I elected to stay in as I needed to finalize all my travel plans. I needed to know when I was going to fly out of Italy and how quickly I was going to get to Greece as I wanted to stop in Bulgaria and I entertained the thought of hitting Istanbul. I decided that Istanbul was a bit too far out of the way and would have been too costly as my Eurail pass doesn't include it but I've heard great things so I definitely want to go next time I'm out in this area. I ended up booking a flight to London for a total of 25 Euro, 10 of that being my bag fee, and 5 of it being a fee for the pleasure of using a credit card.

Ballin in Perestroka

Ballin in Perestroka
Monday, August 17, 2009
4:07 PM

As we had another relaxing day set we had a lavish breakfast when we woke up and then got ready to go play a little basketball at the school across the street. Before that we went into the house where Marko's Mom grew up, which was on the same property. Looking through old pictures was great as I saw one of both of Marko's parents sitting on the couch that we were sitting on looking at the album.

From there we went to shoot around and as per normal I was ice cold from the field. While I was able to dominate in Italy it definitely wasn't due to a nice jump shot. We played a best-of-3 game that I really enjoyed. A person chooses a shot, takes it 3 times, then the others have chances to do better. While it’s a really simple game I think that it is challenging and excellent if you're tired of horse or around the world. One of the more interesting things that I had noticed before, but for whatever reason took into more consideration that day, was the lack of American-style urban sprawl.

Although the city's population was under 20,000 there were still fairly large, multistory, apartment buildings. There were also what looked like industrial buildings or factories and the square that I mentioned yesterday was also pretty large, with a few cafes and tons of shops. It just seemed like far more things than a city of 20,000 would support . In the states people would definitely spread out a small town quite a bit with strip malls and tract houses (which I generally like) but I guess American small towns used to be more dense too. After relaxing a bit more and getting another good meal we headed back to Belgrade .

Beograd to Perstoka

Beograd to Perstoka
Sunday, August 16, 2009
4:03 AM

As the weekend had been action packed Sunday ended up being a day of recovery. After getting some laundry done thanks to Marko's beyond hospitable Aunt Tetka, we headed out to her and Marko's Mom's hometown. Although Western Europe runs on trains I definitely got the feeling that Eastern Europe is far more Bus friendly. While the trains almost always depart late, and arrive late, the busses tend to just run a little late on arrivals and run very frequently.

The busses themselves are normal charter busses although I've yet to be on one that has a bathroom. I actually consider this to be an advantage as I've had some nauseating rides due to having toilets on board. The bus to Perstoka was a two hour trip from Belgrade and somehow it ran a few times a day even though there were only 12 people on our bus. Once we got there we were greeted by Marko's Aunt and Uncle and nine year old 5'8" cousin. They tend to be a bit worrisome and had called eight times to make sure we were alright as there was a crash in Bulgaria earlier in the week.

We walked from the bus station to their house and upon arriving I was asked if I was hungry to which I, like almost always replied that "I'm fine". Six courses later, I was excellent. Easily one of my favorite things I've eaten on this trip was the stuffed peppers with rice and ground beef. Something about how it all melded together was just magic. After dinner we played some Pro Evolution Soccer and I continued the losing streak that I started in Italy when I was playing Carlo at FIFA.

I also realized that I needed to get in touch with the family and having not spoken with them in a little over a month and as I was feeling a little homesick I went on a mission to make a call with Skype. At a bit past midnight local time I started roaming around the square looking for a WiFi signal. Just as I was about to give up (whatever I could find was locked, or useless) and chalk the failure up to the fact that I was in a small town, a single bar signal came up. I tracked down the signal to a little photo shop outside of the main square and posted up on the curb and called the 'rents who both said I sounded great. Marko had gotten worried as I had been gone for awhile and after a search considered calling the cops, but settled with bitching me out for being gone for so long at such a late hour.

The Suburbs and Harley Davidson

The Suburbs and Harley Davidson
Saturday, August 15, 2009
4:00 AM

On Saturday we got picked up by family friend of Marko and headed out to the suburbs of Belgrade, roughly 20 minutes outside of the city. Once we got to the house we were greeted with Raijka and a hearty lunch. Much like Filipinos and Italians the Serbs are always concerned about their guests getting enough to eat. I do think it’s a universal thing when Moms see me that they never think I eat enough at any single sitting but Marko assured Sasha's Mom that I was well fed.

The layout of the property itself was pretty sweet. At the front was a three story (four story if you include the usable attic) house. In back of the house was a garage, and a dedicated kitchen. By dedicated kitchen I mean one with three different types of ovens, an outdoor barbeque, and a meat smoker. Outside the kitchen was the porch where we ate and as the house and kitchen formed an L shape the rest was a yard with a volleyball court and fruit trees on it. After lunch we went up to the house to play some ping pong. We had a four man tournament and defying all odds Marko emerged victorious and had a good time gloating about it.

After we finished up there we headed back to Belgrade and went to a bar owned by a legendary Serbian classic rock artist. It was called Harley Davidson and upon walking in the band on stage was playing the Guns 'n Roses classic 'Sweet Child of Mine'. The lead singer was butchering the ballad in a way I'd never heard it done but it made for an interesting rendition. After that we met up with the Cavic's again and went to the barges again and had a lot of fun dancing to some pretty awesome euro techno mash-ups. Nirvana and MLK's "I have a Dream" speech were both in rotation.

After the club we went in search of burek, the classic Serbian breakfast food. The girls swore they knew a great place, which took almost 45 minutes to get too then ended up being closed due to it being Sunday. Eventually we found some burek and although it is delicious, it is easily the heaviest breakfast food I've ever eaten with any consistency. I had a meat one that consisted with a ton of flaky crust on the outside with a kinda doughy center and ground beef cooked in. The kicker is that most of them are so greasy that the paper they're wrapped in is see through and to eat it properly you dip them in yogurt, delicious as a heart attack.

Beograd Beer Fest

Beograd Beer Fest
Friday, August 14, 2009
3:57 AM

After arriving off the night train back at Marko's Aunt's house we both took the opportunity to get a bit more rest. In the early evening Marko had some errands he needed to run and I wanted to take a run so we both took advantage of that. I was told to simply 'take a left at the intersection and that'll lead you straight to the fortress'. In a lack of foresight I didn’t realize that the left I was taking was down the main promenade. Once I hit the crowds my run turned into a brisk stroll.

Belgrade's population hovers around the three million mark with the metro being a fair bit larger. Every evening the promenade is packed with vendors, street performers, people sipping at cafes, and foot traffic cruising around - the weekend is just a bit worse. After I reached the fortress I was able to pick up my pace again and I cruised down to the fields off the Danube and watched a bit of what looked a lot like a high school football team practicing. Apparently football has started growing in popularity a bit with the younger kids and given the massive builds of Serbs it seems like a natural sport to excel in.

When I got back we readied up and met with Sanya, a dancer from Belgrade, and went over to Mark's, an expat from San Diego. After chatting a bit over there we cruised down to the legendary Beograd Beer Festival which was, like Guca, unlike any festivals in the states mostly because they didn't gouge you on food or drinks. The focus of Beer Fest was definitely the music and they had some great bands up on a huge stage with at least a solid 50k people in the crowd.

The most interesting development of the night was when Mike Cavic and a few of his buddies met up with us. Mike was a swimmer at Tustin HS and Berkeley, but chose to swim for Serbia rather than for the US. The world championships just finished up and Mike won a medal, he was on billboards all over Belgrade, in the newspaper, and in all the tabloids. I'd known him through Marko from playing video games with him back home so it was crazy to see people constantly harassing him, asking for pictures, and buying him drinks. His brother Danny, who is the same age as Marko and I, played basketball at USF and plays professionally in Croatia now, got to take care of bodyguard duty. Eventually we headed down to one of the barge clubs where Mike had a table and we had a solid night.

The Castle and Citadel

The Castle and Citadel
Thursday, August 13, 2009
5:29 PM

In the morning we had a delicious breakfast/lunch of traditional Turkish food that was prepared for us by Edena's mom. Marko was still feeling pretty under the weather but he had started a slow revival. We planned on heading back to Belgrade that evening, so we figured it would be best to get the last of our needed sightseeing. We had walked past the castle and citadel in the days prior but hadn't had time to fit them in.

Both were healthy treks and gave beautiful views of the city. The castle was up on a fairly wide hill and was really more of a small city than just a castle. Easily the most unfortunate thing about the area was that a Hilton had been put in near the top and done in a very poor fashion. Although I'd assume it wasn't built during the 70's due to communism, it looked like it was and had really aesthetically displeasing brown glass windows.

We also came across the best hustle either of us had seen in Europe. There was a guy with 3 bottle caps and a little red ball playing the old Bruin Shuffle switch-a-roo. But, the twist was not with that he was taking all comers, it was that he would constantly do it, poorly, then take losing bets for over $200 USD or 200 Euro from 'random' guys in an attempt to rope people in. I tried to get a game for the Hungarian equivalent of $10 but he wasn't having it. As we wound up our walks we went back to the local kebab place and feasted one last time, then caught our train back to Beograd.