the babushka beat me with birch branches

Eddie, the jaunty owner of the dandy Kosmonaut hostel in Lviv arranged a trip to a Ukrainian bath, the bania. "The people who go say it's the highlight of their Lviv visit." I was convinced. Day bags packed with towels, toiletries, flip-flops, bottles of water, and foam squares (I'll explain), we hopped a bus to the bania. The bania is segregated into men's and women's sections, and since I was the only one in present company with two X chromosomes, I quizzed Eddie on protocol before heading in on my own. I kinda wished there was another girl going in with me, just so I wouldn't feel so starkly on my own, but the only other girl at the hostel was the receptionist.

Outside the bania we purchased bouquets of leafy branches from a guy who had set up shop on a side porch. There were a couple of different species, and feeling in the mood to spurge, I chose the slightly more pricey traditional birch for 15 hryvnia (~$3.00). Inside we each paid an additional 15 hryvnia entrance fee. Before heading off in our separate directions, Eddie explained once again what would happen, adding, "that's if it goes perfectly." Hmm. The door to adventure was a slab of metal that looked like it could be concealing a nuclear bomb shelter, and there was nothing to do but walk through it.

The only thing behind the door was an unremarkable locker room with a naked lady reading a newspaper. I found the attendant, showed her my receipt, and made sure to mention "No Ukrainian." She nodded, and pointed out a locker for me. I stowed my clothes, all of them, and armed with my bottle of water, towel, birch bouquet, and foam square (don't worry, I'll explain), and doing my best to coerce my self-consciousness to go hide in the corner for a while, went through the second bomb blast door.

I expected to be in the sauna, but instead found myself in a big, industrial room that in general descriptive terms mimicked the Turkish hamam, except nowhere near as nice. I think that room was built in the sixties, and nothing has been updated since. There were stone blocks for resting, showers along one end, the cold plunge pool on the other end, and taps along each opposite side. At first glance I'd call it dilapidated, but mostly everything seemed to work, so the dereliction was only surface deep. I didn't know what kind of attendance to expect for a Monday afternoon, but it was busy, women everywhere sitting on the blocks resting, washing themselves from plastic basins, or rinsing off under a shower. Trying hard to look like I knew what I was doing, I cast furtive glances around to get the lay of the land and my bearings. After what seemed like a long time, but probably wasn't really, I figured out there was another door. I had found the sauna.

The Ukrainian sauna is wood, and who knows how long it's been there. Wood saunas on some level are a nose-wrinkling concept. Take hot, humid conditions, add an organic medium, toss in a little bacteria. I would think that this results in a steamy bacteria stewpot, but clearly people have enjoyed saunas for centuries without keeling over from infections, so why strain the brain with worry. Looking even shabbier than the washroom, the sauna was a rise of wooden steps, and here's where the foam square comes into play. Something to sit on instead of soaking wet wood. And it was broiling in there. Somehow the hot air is piped through the vertical faces of the steps, so sitting on one scorched the small of my back and my heels simultaneously. But once I found a happy place, it was really lovely. I have a history if turning my nose up at saunas, but after three months in strange beds on average once every three days, carrying a 15 kilogram rucksack, and forgetting my soap half the time I take showers, sitting, sweating, and baking, bacteria hoedown or no, was just what I needed.

The process in the bania is to go between the sauna and the cold plunge a few times, maybe taking an hour and a half in total to do it. The wash room is also for resting and rehydrating before heading back into the extreme heat. The birch branches you take with you into the sauna, and let them soften up in the heat and moisture. Once they've rehydrated, you basically slap them all over your body. Exfoliation is one desired result, and maybe it's also that the leaves have essential oils that are good for your skin. Eddie told me to not use them my first time in the sauna, but while I was sitting there, an old lady came up and started talking to me. I gave her a smile. "Aahh, no Ukrainian." Pointing to myself. "American." She got it, but that didn't stop her from rattling on. I think she guessed, quite correctly, that I was in there for the first time, and was trying to give me some information. Including on how to use the birch. Handing her my bouquet, this little cute babushka in a headscarf swatted me all over with birch branches. All I could do was stare at the soggy, wooden steps with a stupid smile plastered on my face. It was almost too funny for words, and I don't think I'm doing it justice. Basically, I'm stark naked and sweating in a Ukrainian sauna, and an old lady is beating me with a bouquet of birch branches.

After a while the heat became too much, and I had to leave. Figuring Babushka was my bath buddy, I checked with her about getting into the cold plunge. She told me to first take a quick shower, I guess to wash off sweat and leaves, but it also cooled me down enough that the cold plunge wasn't quite as shocking as it could have been. I was too much of a chicken to jump in, instead walking down the steps, and couldn't steel myself enough to dunk my head under. After I got out there seemed to be some sort of sauna maintenance going on, so I just rested on one of the stone blocks, taking note of the range of women in there. It was all over the age map, and not a hint of anyone being self-conscious about body image. There were even a couple of teenagers, and one girl who looked somewhere in the neighborhood of six years old. For them it was just another day in the bania. It didn't matter what anyone else looked like, or even what they looked like. I can't imagine the scene anywhere in the west, at least not conducted with the same air of nonchalance. Oh, here comes Babushka again...

I thought that maybe she singled me out since I was the obvious newbie, but she did it to someone else later. She scrubbed me down with a scrubby mitt. Same goofy smile on my face as before, I realized it was a good thing that I had come in on my own; being there with another girl who I could talk to would have created some degree of separation between me and the locals. Babushka adopted me because I was on my own. I'm happy she did for the amusing experience alone, but it also made me rethink the conclusion that I had come to in Kiev, that Ukrainians were by nature kind of rude and unfriendly. I realized I had based that pretty much on service industry interactions, and that everyone I met subsequently in Lviv were quite cordial, service industry or otherwise.

Back in the sauna, I lay on the steps, staring at the dripping ceiling and wondering if that white stuff was mold or something else. Again, not sure how that joint was holding together. It was a room constructed of soaking wet warped wood that would never, ever dry out. Thinking about it, I suppose wet wood is strong enough, it just gave the place the ambience of a garden shed after three days of rain, complete with the fragrance of greenery from the bouquets. I saw one woman who had two difference species, slapping them both against her body, one in each hand. Another droll detail was the woolly caps worn by a number of bathers. Asking Eddie about this afterwards, he surmised that it's to protect hair from the heat of the sauna, but wearing a wool cap while otherwise in the nude was incongruous fashion.

I wasn't counting the minutes, but it felt like each time I went into the sauna, I was able to stand it for less time than before. I'd slowly heat up, and then suddenly I'd be way too hot. I'd stand up, and my feet would start to burn for being near the vents, and it was a small test of endurance to calmly walk out instead of taking a flying jump down the stairs in the general direction of the door. Four times in and out, and it was time to meet up with the guys in the café. Babushka was still socializing with a gaggle of other ladies, and at last glance they were all drinking tea from china cups with an orange or two floated in one of the plastic wash basins. I floated out of the locker room, feeling as shiny and uplifted as the urchin depicted on the souvenir bar of soap I purchased from the front kiosk.

КИЇВ

The train from Chișinău to Kiev was another sophisticated sleeper, and I had it all to my lonesome. Small difference on this one, though, passengers were expected to pay a nominal fee for sheets, and Moldova is the one time I exchanged all of my local currency into euros before leaving. I only had nine lei left over (85 US cents), and I needed 20. At least I got one more use out of the sleep sack I've been toting around, wadded up at the bottom of my pack. The porter for my carriage didn't speak any English, and I didn't have any handy fellow traveler translator, but she wasn't quite as brusque as the Romanian porter had been. When I boarded, I did witness more of the conspiratorial talks between the porter and what appeared to be passengers in search of passage. The only word I understood was No, and even if that hadn't been easy enough the decipher, the repeated head shakes were clear enough. More people trying to sweet talk their way onto a train, or maybe just a package through for delivery? Still don't know, still want to find out. Curse my feeble language skills.

The night porter plays a pretty crucial role in overnight travel, and can make the difference on a journey. You won't necessarily see them a lot, since they usually leave you in peace, it's more that you would notice their absence if they weren't there when it mattered. In addition to keeping an eye on the security of the carriage, they keep track of who needs to get off at which stop, calling in at your cabin in advance to make sure you know the stop is imminent, and waking you up if necessary. They also wake you up before the wee hour border checks, and help out the border agents. The first agent I saw leaving Moldova was the four-legged furry kind with a nose so powerful I could hear the sniffing approaching from down the hallway. I had my rucksack stowed in a bin under my berth, and had to give the dog access for a couple of whiffs. The Ukrainian agents were both women in army fatigues, and the one who had to deal with me only looked annoyed when it became clear that I didn't speak Ukrainian. Or maybe it was just impatience, since it was dark o'clock in the morning. I had to fill in a short paper form stating personal information and my destination, and the night porter stepped in to make sure I was filling it in okay. Half was left with me, and half went to wherever all the little scraps of eastern bloc bureaucracy go to be bound up in neat bundles, stacked up, and forgotten about.

It's a little hard to tell, but that's a statue of Lenin there, the only one remaining in Kiev. It kind of looks like he's asking you to admire the latest Porsche and Lexus, no? Shows how much Ukraine has changed, sort of. City center is all neon pizzazz, restaurant chains, and cafés. Just believe me when I tell you that there's at least three coffee shops in this picture of Liberation Square.

The Kiev metro costs 50 kopecks a ride (10¢ – eat that, BART!) and even though trains show up every three to four minutes, they're always packed. Sometimes there enough room to stand without smashed up to anyone, but without being able to reach anything to hold onto, so you need to subway surf, which is a good way to build up some solid leg muscles. At other times it's sardine packed, to the point that, should the train have the misfortune to smash into a tunnel wall, everyone would probably still be standing up, wedged in the exact same place as before. Getting into or out of a carriage is a pushin-n-shovin' free for all, and anyone with a modicum of manners would simply be left on the platform with the doors closing in their face. Remarkably, there's no ass-grabbing, although plenty of prime opportunities are at hand. Even getting to the platform is cut-throat; I saw a woman cut off, by mere centimeters, a girl using a pair of crutches, who was approaching the escalator. I'm not really sure what the point was, as 98% of the riders stand still on the escalators. Really, why bother walking. You could actually get some quality reading time on the escalators; the metro tunnels are so far underground, it can take over two minutes to complete one ride. I took a video, but blogger isn't letting me post it, and I've given up trying to figure out why. I never took the metro more than a couple of stops beyond city center, and I wish I had; another hosteler reported that it doesn't take very long for the downtown sparkle to give way to run down neighborhoods looking as if the Iron Curtain never parted.

I spent a chunk of one day at the monastery complex of Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Paying my entrance fee, I couldn't figure out why I received four tickets. Someone figured out later that each ticket had a price designation; the fee was 10 hryvnia, which entitled me to three 3 hryvnia tickets and one 1 hryvnia ticket. Depending on how you look at it, it either (a) is a waste of paper, (b) is a charming remnant of Soviet pencil pushing, or (c) makes perfect sense. I'm going with (b). Other than a dense concentration of orthodox churches, there's a system of catacombs. They're commonly referred to as caves in a lot of the literature, but the ones I found were more like underground corridors. They're lined with glass coffins displaying the preserved bodies of saints. Is it still a relic if the whole body is there, or does it then qualify for a new term? The lighting is minimal, and most observers purchase tapers at the church shops, and carry them through for lighting. I didn't, so resorted to bogarting candlelight. As with most of the orthodox churches I've been in, I was one of very few, if not the only tourist. My brilliant deduction was based on the observation that I was the only person not kissing each and every coffin along the corridor, crossing myself with sweeping gestures in front of the churches, or seeking a blessing from the priests. Religious devotion is a strange thing. Why was the woman walking down the hallway in front of me so convinced that these mummified bodies were holy? I hope it's for some other reason than she read it somewhere, or because someone told her so. I've really liked the Orthodox churches I've been in; they can be ornate and beautiful, interiors wholly covered in icons, glitteriness, and paintings, but the lighting is usually quite dim, sometimes being only from candles, which imbues them with a mysterious and meditative quality I found lacking in the Roman Catholic churches. Ruminative atmospheres, but not enough to make me abandon my skepticism.

I had a little trouble finding my way around the complex. The doors to most of the churches and buildings were closed, and I was never totally sure if I was supposed to walk through some doors or not. The only signs in English were ones requesting Please Close the Door! (it was cold). I only found the caves by following other people; I had been looking around for a cave-like entrance, but they are accessed through ordinary buildings. There's a Museum of Books, which is one of the few places with a sign, but even if it hadn't, the door would have been a dead giveaway.


Lack of helpful outdoor signage only continued inside, and I almost missed the second floor displays, which would have been a damn shame. The first floor displays are mostly about printing, including printing presses, but the second floor is all about book design and illustration, including collections of ex libris bookplates. Oh man. There is so much high caliber art in that place, I would have been happy to smash the glass and make off with any one of the items on display.

Just down the street from Pechersk Lavra is the Museum of the Great Patriotic War complex. I didn't go into the museum, but took a wander around the grounds. You can't get lost trying to find it, since a 62-meter high statue of Motherland towers above it. This is my favorite patriotic girl, from another set of smaller sculptures. To get the full effect, imagine a rousing anthem playing in the background.


Other museums visits included the best and the worst in one day. The worst – the Chernobyl Museum. I know that tourism is still young in Ukraine, and I know it's unreasonable to expect English signage to be everywhere, but the lack of English language labeling made what could have been a fascinating museum impenetrable. I can only assume that any non-Ukrainian speaker would have a similar experience. It takes for granted that anyone visiting already knows details of the disaster, and most of the displays are documents and identity card photos. I can't tell you what the documents are, because I couldn't read them, and there was no explanation of what they were. There were some obvious items, like identity card booklets, but then the identity and story of whomever it was wasn't explained. What's curiously lacking are images of Chernobyl itself, either from the time immediately after the explosion, or from today. I'm told that the reason to visit the actual site is not necessarily to get an unhealthy dose of radiation, but to witness first-hand the abandoned city (I didn't go). I left the museum unsatisfied, and just as uninformed about the event as before I went it.

A much more stimulating experience is a short walk away at the Museum of One Street. Crammed into two rooms, plus the foyer, this museum is an artfully cluttered collection of items from the daily life of the residents of Andriyivskyy uzviz from the turn of the 20th century. It's as if you walked into the apartment of an individual who had impeccable taste, a naughty sense of humor, was a shopaholic, and who never threw anything away. Old jazzy tunes swing quietly in the background, and there's no English explanations, but there's no Ukrainian ones either. This museum is all about looking, and drooling over what you're looking at.



Hitting the streets on my first day in town I came across the opera house, and noticed that La Traviata was on the schedule for the following night, November 28th. Amusing coincidence, because when I bought my opera tickets in Belgrade, the guy in the box office accidentally printed out incorrect tickets, for La Traviata on November 28th. Joking about it as he reprinted the correct tickets, he asked if I wanted to see it, and I told him maybe I'd come back. Sounds like some sort of destiny. The woman in the Kiev box office didn't speak English, so I just asked "Traviata?", and wrote 28 on a scrap of paper. Nodding, she indicated a seat on a chart. The chart was folded over, but I was pretty sure she was pointing to an orchestra seat, something near the front. I didn't know how to ask for a cheaper seat, so I just said okay, and it still only cost me 100 hryvnia, about $20.


The Kiev National Theater follows the same model as the one in Belgrade, except it's bigger. I expected virtuosic performances, but it was kind of sloppy. Violetta was good, except for the high notes, Alfredo held his own but had a propensity to turn, in not so subtle way, to face the conductor, I'm pretty sure someone backstage was having a very loud conversation, but the big disappointment was Germont's Act II aria. If I were the general manager I'd have handed him his final check and called in the understudy. I may have gotten a different perspective from a cheaper seat, but from my vantage point in the sixth row it looked like he just couldn't be bothered to put in the effort to sustain a reasonable performance. It annoys me that anyone with that ability would be so cavalier about it when it came to a performance. Or maybe he was really that lousy a singer. But in the end, I paid $20 and saw an opera in Kiev. Not a bad evening. Especially because on the way out I was handed a 2 for 1 coupon to one of the many café chains, one branch of which happens to be right behind the opera house. Two giant cappuccinos later (plus tiramisu), caffeine overtaking my system, I went back to the hostel and stayed up really late.


In Belgrade, Chris and Gaby had done their work prepping me for Ukraine, with salivating tales of a cafeteria full of cheap Ukrainian food. And to make it more of a culinary adventure, nothing is labeled in English. I recall my language difficulties in Turkey, but at least in Turkey people seemed used to encountering English speakers. Not so much in Ukraine. In an odd way, I like this, because it poses a challenge and makes things difficult. Difficult things can be nerve-wracking at the time that you're dealing with them, but they are almost always interesting and rewarding in retrospect. I can think of a lot of hair-raising strange foods, but none of them are in a Ukrainian cafeteria. I was looking forward to it, because unless you're able to decipher the Cyrillic, it's down to pointing and hoping. I was feeling slightly malnourished after my Moldovan malady and unintentional fast, so hit an establishment called Dva Gusta, which turned out to not be the same chain that I'd heard about, but functioned in exactly the same manner. Deciding to play it safe than sorry for a first meal, I ended up with a lot of chicken and some baked cheesy cakes. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be a main or a dessert, somehow magically managing to be endowed with qualities of both, dense but not too sweet. Of course, it's always more fun to have partners in culinary adventures and stupidity. Returning the next day with two guys staying at the hostel, Thomas and Iain, I decided I had to find the chicken kiev. I've never had chicken kiev, but was tasked by a friend to discover if butter really does squirt out when you slice into it. Standing in line, under the perplexed gaze of the staff who were no doubt wondering what the hell we were doing, we squinted at the Cyrillic, managing to find the letter string for "kiev", but not knowing what the word for chicken was. Iain finally resorted to charades, something small, fried, and hand grenade sized was handed to us on a plate, and cameras at the ready, we sliced in. The butter was positively volcanic.

Language skills, or lack thereof, may be surmountable where food is at stake, but buying train tickets can be something else entirely. Buy as many train and bus tickets as I have in the last three months, and you encounter some people who are clearly having a bad day, but for the most part ticket sellers try to be helpful and accommodating. Ukraine is the first place where I encountered flat-out rudeness, and a complete disinterest in providing any help, specifically in regards to securing transportation. I don't know if it's because they aren't accustomed to tourists (there's that excuse again), or if it's a holdover from the days where you got paid the same whether you were helpful or not helpful, and since being not helpful is easier, why not take the path of least resistance. Buying a train ticket without sharing a common language should actually be quite simple. It requires a tiny bit of homework, ie, figuring out the local word for departures. Then you just look at the departures board, and write down all the info on a slip of paper — date of travel, name of destination, train number, time. Handing this to a ticket seller should be enough to get a ticket, although some charades to sort out details may come into play. Sleeper car? Upper or lower berth? One ticket? It's not rocket science. It does, however, help to have a brain with enough cells to know which month is which. Iain and I both wanted train tickets to Lviv, but he was leaving two days later than I was, in December. I wanted to leave November 30th. Copying down train information from him, I neglected to switch the month, and about five second after being handed my ticket, realized what I had done. And this was from the nicer of the two ticket vendors we encountered. Advised by one of the guidebooks that a certain window at the Kiev train station was used to dealing with foreigners, we showed up and proved that they were dead wrong. Thomas asked the girl at the window if she spoke English, and she wouldn't even look at him. Question repeated with the same result. A Ukrainian in the next line leaned over and asked, in Ukrainian, if she spoke English. She looked at him. No, she didn't speak English, and she wasn't even going to try to help us, merely turning to the next person in line. That piece of advice riddled with bullets and shot to death (I'm finding guidebooks more and more worthless the longer I travel), we went to the next window, where the woman actually made an attempt to help us. She wasn't pleased by having to reach over to get our slips of paper from the counter, but we both got tickets after relatively painless exchanges. Except I had given her the wrong date, and had a correspondingly incorrect ticket. I could do one of two things — spend another 100 hryvnia on a correct ticket, or try to convince her that I was an idiot, and see if she would reprint my ticket for me. I figured the idiocy was fairly evident, so convicing her of such would be easy. And in case she tried to hurl a sharpened pencil at me, I was reassured by the presence of the plexiglass window between us. Yet it wasn't without a little trepidation that I went back to the window. If looks could kill I'd be a splotch on the floor of the Kiev train station ticket salon, but to her credit, she reprinted my ticket, free of any charges.

I ended up being a little distracted in Kiev (those not interested in finances or office politics can stop reading, since I'm about to let loose a rant). I need to go home soon, and had spent a couple of weeks communicating with my job to figure exactly I need to be back, so I could finish planning my trip and buy plane tickets. My job gives me stock option grants, and taking a leave of absence of over 90 days affects the vest date of any shares that have not yet vested. The final word was that I needed to be back on December 21st in order to not have stock option vesting affected. To put this in context, the company is completely closed for winter holiday from December 22nd through January 1st. So, they want me to fly home from overseas, show up at work for one day, during which I will do exactly nothing except read email, and then go on another ten day break. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so I posed what I thought was a sensible and logical solution, which was that I work remotely on the 21st. Reading email in Latvia and reading email in California amount to pretty much the same thing. No, this is not an acceptable solution, since this activity wouldn't hold up to a stock option audit. Now, I appreciate the fact that my company is generous enough to grant me stock options, but let's be quite honest, the amount they give me, relative to others in the great vegetable garden of options, amounts to a pea pod. But that's not even what bugs me, since slipping a vest date just means the free money comes later rather than sooner. What bugs me is that in the six years that I've been there, I have never worked remotely. Never. I've taken vacations and I've called in sick. Other than that, I've always been onsite for paid hours. Many others seem to work remotely on a daily basis, and as far as I know, it's never questioned. Working from home? Or cleaning your apartment and checking your email once an hour? Let's see that hold up to a stock option audit. I told The Job them I'd see them in January. Even if I made it back to California by the 21st, I wouldn't go in on principle alone. Gggrrarr.

Okay, rant over.

top dog and a dog in a topper

Despite the warning in Bucharest, nothing happened on the train to Chișinău. Not to me. I was in a four-berth sleeping car, shared with a very polite young man and an older woman. Young Man spoke some English, and told me to let him know if I needed any help. He was helpful without my asking, translating for the porter who would show up and bark out stuff in Romanian ("ticket and passport!"). I can't remember what time we hit the border, sometime around don't-want-to-be-awake-o'clock. Neither Young Man nor I raised any exit immigration eyebrows, but our travel companion did. First her passport disappeared down the hallway in the hands of an agent, and then the agent returned, with the porter, words were exchanged, and in the end she took her luggage, and disappeared down the hallway as well. I waited a decent amount of time, then asked Young Man what just happened. Searching for some English words, he explained that she had overstayed the time allowed in Romania. "And now there is a problem." Umm. The train started rolling again without her having returned, and not knowing when the entry border check would be, I dozed off clutching my passport, with the cabin light on. The next stop came a couple of hours later, at what I guess was the first full stop beyond the Moldovan border. An agent in very formal military dress, up to his combination cap halo, who spoke English, asked me to fill out a customs declaration, which he pulled from a leather satchel. Having heard vague warnings about occasionally corrupt Moldovan agents, I declared only a very small amount of money, my emergency cash and souvenir notes from other countries safely stowed down my trousers. Young Man disembarked, and train rolling again, I went back to sleep. I woke up to the door opening, and the disappeared woman reappeared. Don't know where she was for those few hours, but I'm curious to find out.

The mysterious, temporary disappearance of a passenger only reinforced the pure, old school Eastern European-ness of the train. I've been on a lot of trains on this trip, and this one took the cake, the frosting, and the jimmies sprinkled on top. The berths by themselves would have been sufficient for sleeping, but a bed roll was also provided, as well as a pillow, pillow case, two sheets, and a blanket. Each berth had a reading light. The main corridor had a runner. The cabins had rugs. The windows had curtains. The table had a tablecloth. And the flooring hid compartments, which I only realized when the border agents came through with flashlights, lifting them up to check for anything (anyone?) squirreled away. By my standards, ritzy.

Okay, I admit it. I hadn't the foggiest where Moldova was before I started this trip. Now I do. Next to Romania, below Ukraine. Someone in Braşov asked me why I was going to Chișinău, and I didn't really have a good answer for him. Moldova doesn't exactly top the lists of holiday hot spots, and I wasn't aware of any offbeat oddball attractions. But I had a wodge of Moldovan lei, Chișinău is sort of on the way to my next destination (Kiev), and since the train conveniently arrived in the morning, why not stop for a couple of days. It's not the most compelling reason to visit a city, but it isn't the worst reason, either.

Before leaving the train station I was taking a moment to study the departure board to see what I could deduce about Kiev-bound trains. Looking like a backpacker with my big turquoise rucksack, now a bit dingy, an American approached me and asked me if I wanted to share transportation to the city center. He had made friends with a Romanian guy in his train compartment, who was meeting a Moldovan friend, who might be able to help us out. I said okay, and twenty minutes later wished I'd hadn't. It was nothing terrible, just something annoying. Watching these three grown men figure out first how to get to city center, and then once we'd gotten there, how to purchase sim cards for their phones, and thereafter how to install purchased sim cards in their phones and get them working was worse than a roomful of pre-teens deciding which outfit to wear to the mall on a Friday night. Actually, the two Europeans were okay and perfectly friendly, it was mostly the American, Niles, who was unbearable. He had that special gift of sucking those around him into solving his problems, ie, having left the address of his accommodation in his email instead of writing it out. I was feeling guilty by association, like I had imposed on the Moldovan guy to help me out, when I knew I could have made it to the hostel on my own. I like traveling alone because decisions don't involve wishy-washy twenty minute conversations where no one can decide what they want or how to achieve it, especially when it's something that's ultimately insignificant. We could have gotten to city center in a cab or in a minibus. Both achieved the same end. Both were cheap. It didn't matter which one we took. Niles also suffered from that condition where he talked too much, and complicated issues that were really quite simple. I should have known, since a couple times during the border stops, I had heard him yammering on from down the hallway. During the cab ride, he somehow got onto a discussion with the Romanian on how many liters were in a gallon, but he didn't really know what a liter was. Pulling my canteen from my bag, I waved it in front of his face. "This is a half liter." My Nalgene-clear demonstration wasn't quite enough the resolve the matter, and I tuned out. I wanted to ditch him as soon as we got out of the cab, but he wanted to follow me to the hostel, in case he couldn't locate he place he had booked, and I figured 10:00 in the morning was too early to be heartless. 22:00 would have been a different story, I would have walked off in a heartbeat. He was such a scatterbrain. After the interminable discussion of sim card and mobile phones (reason enough to never own one), we were finally on our way, and he left his duffle sitting on the sidewalk.

The hostel is just a family run affair in an apartment. Who knows if it's even legal. The owner isn't usually there, and the man onsite is Viktor, her dad. His soft, white-haired, track-suited appearance is jarred slightly by a mouthful of gold teeth. He speaks very little English, communicating instead in Russian, and spends all of his time playing solitaire on a computer monitor so old it's gone all sorts of horrible colors. He sleeps on a couch in the front room, next to the galley kitchen. If anything complicated needs to be communicated, he calls his daughter, and hands you the phone. You tell her whatever, and hand the phone back to Viktor. Sounds a little convoluted, but actually works quite well. There isn't much about hostel life and particulars that can't be demonstrated with simple words and gestures. This toilet seat certainly needs no words.

Before being freed of Niles, who went in search of an internet café, I was treated to his theories about DDT and corresponding breast sizes of women in Moldova and Ukraine. I won't try to explain, since I didn't understand, didn't want to understand. I walked for about six hours and returned to the hostel when my feet hurt and night was falling. There was an average of five currency exchange offices for each city block, and by chance I came across one that exchanged Bulgarian leva, along with about twenty other currencies. I got rid of extra leva, Romanian lei, and Turkish lira, exchanging the lira into euros. The wads of toilet tissue I keep stuffed in all my trouser pockets are more valuable than the dollar right now. Thank you, US Government. I can't wait until you're voted out of office. I was the only person at the hostel, besides Viktor, and he set me up in the private dorm with the television. After being sick in Plovdiv, I thought I had paid my vacation illness dues, but I could feel something nefarious sneaking up on me during the day. By evening I developed a low fever. I contemplated going to a pharmacy, but had no idea what to ask for, or how to ask for something to make me feel better. Instead I just slouched in an armchair all evening, flipping through television stations. Moldovan television airs lots of English language shows and movies, but most of them have been subjected to a kind of low quality dub; the English soundtrack is turned down (but not all the way), and a couple of actors do double, triple, quadruple duty voicing lines for however many characters. I was pretty sure some of them had simply one voice for men, and one for women. They must be doing it on the fly, since the Moldovan, possibly Russian, dialogue was always about a beat behind the English. Feeling more and more googly as the evening progressed, I finally crawled into bed and wadded myself up under the covers. The hostel was quiet enough, but sometime in the middle of the night, a barking dog chorus kicked up outside. It was like the twilight bark from 101 Dalmatians, except this one didn't stop, and the one dog that seemed to have a lot to say must have been sitting right outside of the building. My fevered brain started fantasizing about a tranquilizer gun. Nothing that would hurt him, just something to shut him up until morning. Eventually he stopped, or I fell asleep despite the noise, I can't remember which.

I peeled my eyes open at 10:00 in the morning, way later than I ever sleep in. I felt slightly better, and resumed my city perambulations, toying with the idea of food. I had eaten barely anything since getting into town, but didn't really have an appetite. Nothing sounded appetizing, and my stomach felt fragile. I compromised with a yogurt. A lot of the yogurt, or yogurty products, over here are sour, and every time I get one there's a moment of thinking it's gone way off. I check the date, tell myself it's fine, and get it down.

Chișinău's pleasant enough for a walkabout – lots of the sidewalks are nice and wide, and little markets are sprinkled around everywhere. Everything was so dirt cheap, I was tempted to buy just for the sheer bargain, but after a moment's reflection remembered that I didn't need anything, except a pair of thermal underwear. The vendor seemed to have them in bulk without a sizing chart, so I did some math on a piece of cardboard to convert my height, weight, and waist size to metric, and let her make a selection for me. I wasn't convinced they would fit, but for $5.00 decided I could risk a miss. They turned out to be kind of snug, but good enough. I felt better about my plans to head further north in the coming weeks. Much of the commerce in town was more specialized than I've seen elsewhere; there were a few grocery stores, but between them I found all sorts of shops devoted to one item - plastic bins and detergents were two of the big standouts. The market stalls sold shoes, undergarments, or second-hand sweaters, but never in the same place. And a good chunk of the transactions around town were taking place through windows of ubiquitous street kiosks.

Successful thermals purchase aside, I found Chișinău to be a bit impenetrable, at times literally so. It doesn't have a significant amount of noteworthy buildings which look inviting. Many of the cafés and restaurants I noticed were chains, all neon and staffed by apathetic teens in uniforms. Even though my appetite hadn't returned, I went into one to get something simple, and managed to be ignored for twenty minutes by at least three wait staff. I took it as a sign that maybe I shouldn't eat anything, not yet. Had I been feeling punchier, I would have grabbed one of them, ordered something, and then walked out before it was served. Other cafés had all the windows covered with screens, many of which were depicting the type of ladies that high-rolling business men seek the acquaintance of on a temporary basis. I was wondering if they were strip clubs, and kind of wanted to stroll through one of the doors to find out, but wasn't feeling up to it by myself. Such activities are far more worthwhile when attempted with a friend. I think Chișinău is a city best visited in the company of a local. In all fairness, I was feeling kinda gross for the couple of days that I was there, and wasn't motivated to do a lot of in-depth exploring. Moldova is also the one country where I visited only one city, for only three days, which isn't enough time to settle into any new culture or environment. I'd want to spend more time there before making any sweeping statements about Moldovan society. I can tell you, in no uncertain terms, that Chișinău has lots of parks, although at least one of them had a less than inviting entrance.

It took me three trips to the train station to get my ticket to Kiev. The first time I got the train timetable, and since there were two overnight trains, I wanted to think about which one to take. Curiously, when I asked about prices, the girl behind the window only gave me the price for the 20:00 train (382 lei), and not the 23:00 train. I know I asked her for both, so it seemed an odd, intentional omission of information. Going back the next day, to buy a ticket, I had to wait for one of the sellers (all women) to emerge from the back hallway, where I could see them hanging out together. Doing a little experiment, I asked for the prices for the two night trains, and was only given the first, which had dropped to 350 lei. I had to make a special point of getting the price for the second train (slightly more expensive at 410 lei). Having dutifully provided the information requested, the ticket seller promptly got up and walked back to the hallway. Clearly it wasn't worth her time to stick around to see if I actually wanted to purchase a ticket. I really wanted to know what the difference was between the two evening trains, since the one that left three hours later arrived in Kiev one hour earlier, but I had slim hope of getting any sort of answer. None of the women behind the counter seemed remotely interested in providing anything except the most minimal information. Since I wasn't leaving until the next day, I decided to not subject myself unduly to their brand of customer service. By the time I did buy a ticket the following day, the price had dropped yet again, to 336 lei. And as soon as the transaction was under way, my ticket seller immediately became more engaged in the process. She took the time to point out crucial bits of info on the ticket, and I even got a smile at the end. So, sort of a strange flock of birds behind the international tickets window at the Chișinău train station. In some sense, I suppose their demeanor was really just as impenetrable as I found the rest of the city, I just finally managed to crack through a bit with my repeated visits.

A few years ago, I became the temporary owner of an abandoned German shepherd. Not knowing if his owner would turn up the next day and his true identity would be revealed, he was named Mister Dog. He never sported a topper and a bow tie, but he did have to don the Elizabethan collar after getting neutered.

in fang country

Transylvania was blood curdling. Not because demons of the night came whiffling out of the dark and crawled in the window, but because it was damn cold. Damn cold! It squeezed at least a few teeth chatters out of me. At the end of each day I was tired from tensing my muscles against the cold all day. Arriving in Braşov after a significant snowfall, I was just in time to participate in the slip sliding fun over the iced-over pavements. It was like walking on waxed glass. As a bonus, some pavements were iced, and slushied over. It didn't help that the treads on my shoes are close to gone. I reconsidered buying a pair of boots, and almost had myself convinced, since the prices were reasonable enough. In the end I decided to pass, since I don't want to be carrying any more stuff. Despite the fact that I'm wearing, instead of carrying, most of my clothes, and I dumped my old guidebooks in Belgrade (including the Turkey tome), my rucksack seems to have gotten heavier. It's okay. My shoes just need to last another five weeks, and then the soles can fall off for all I care.

The hostel in Braşov was like a slapstick stage comedy. Doors from the common room led to the foyer, one bathroom, one of the dorms, and the dining room, and were constantly opening and shutting as people went from one to another. Anyone hanging out on the couches was the calm in a maelstrom of activity. Adding to this was Diane, the manic manager, who was either doing ten things all at once, or sitting on the couch watching television. Even then, she was constantly answering questions, or making phone calls in order to get an answer. Catching me perusing the posted train schedule, she came up. "What don't you know?" Gosh, where to start? Well, I wanted to go to Sighişoara for one, birthplace of Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula himself. Perched on top of a hill, Sighişoara is a old town with a venerable history of craft. The city museum is housed in the unmistakeable Clock Tower,


and includes displays of the craftsman guilds from back in the day, who also each had their own tower in the city wall, not all of which remain; ironsmiths, locksmiths, hatters, furriers, tinsmiths, shoemakers, and coopers, just to name a few. There was a carpenters guild, but turners qualified for their own separate guild.

Sighişoara also has one of the more baffling signs I've seen. Surely this can't mean what it appears to mean. And if it does, why not?


Returning to Braşov from Sighişoara, I noticed the porters stood outside the carriages checking tickets, instead of coming down the aisles en route. Some were holding animated conversations with guys on the platform, and if I had to take an educated guess as to the nature of the conversation, it's that the guys were trying to wheedle their way onto the train for free. Since the train doors open on both sides, I saw at least one porter, or maybe he was just an upstanding citizen, standing in the carriage at the far door, keeping some passengers from piling in. The train was clearly full, so I found a compartment that had three other women, and took a seat. A few stops later two of them got out, and the other one started talking to me. After figuring out (immediately) that I don't speak Romanian, she just offered me cookies, but then really started trying to tell me something. Something about me and the compartment. On one level I think I got what she was trying to get across, but there was a hurdle in my brain that the thought couldn't quite clear. I think it's because I was actually trying to understand the words, even though I knew darn well that I couldn't. I kept saying, "I'm sorry, I don't understand," and I could tell she was getting frustrated. Summoned by the going nowhere conversation, another, younger, woman materialized in the hallway, and I asked her if she spoke English. After a pause, she said, "No." Well, clearly she knew some basics. She knew enough to get us past my mental hurdle – the older woman was telling me to not stay alone in the compartment by myself, it wasn't safe. I've never had any problems on a train so far, but it was Romania, so I went with the younger woman to her compartment (where, incidentally, she'd been sitting alone), and the first woman looks happy, smiles, and waves goodbye. The train was emptying out as we went along, and eventually we got to the young woman's stop. Picking up her bag, she gave me a last look, and took a moment to search for words. "Be careful." It was said very emphatically. I told her thanks and said goodbye. Nothing happened, nothing even seemed like it was going to happen, but it was nice having a couple of the local girls look after me.

I went on a couple of other day trips that the hostel arranged, which were both okay, but I wish I had made my own way to these places, in order to manage my own time looking around. Our first stop was Râşnov Citadel, which I wouldn't have bothered seeking out myself. It does have at least two interesting items. One is a well in the courtyard. The well itself isn't as interesting as its history; it was dug by two Turkish prisoners, who were promised release when they were finished. One-hundred-forty-six meters deep, the signage didn't mention if the two were released after 17 years of digging. The other is a chest, which has, if I'm remembering correctly, 18 locking mechanisms set into the lid. There was no mention on what treasures required such substantial protection.


Next was Bran Castle, famously Castle Dracula, although it has nothing to do with Vlad Tepes. Maybe he spent a night or two here on his conquering way elsewhere. The only creepy thing I could find inside were a number of pieces of furniture with faces carved into them. I don't care how angelic they are, I don't want chubby cherubs gazing at me when I wake up. The remainder of the decor was distinctly un-creature of the nightish, with lots of painted wood, oriental rugs, and fancy chandeliers. Classic castle elements include a secret stairway and a dramatic location atop a hill. I neglected to take a picture because I was too busy buying tacky vampire postcards at the souvenir bazaar at the bottom of the hill.

Not that I need a reason to eat, but on Thanksgiving I took myself out to a Romanian restaurant. For a starter I got chicken soup with dumplings. Dumplings in pretty much any form can always be a winner, and I was mighty pleased with my soup. For the main course I chose out of the Traditional Plates section, and ordered polenta with cheese and egg. What arrived was a C-cup sized blob of polenta, topped by a fried egg, resting in a nest of white cheese, and surrounded by puddles of sour cream. Sacre bleu. It was physically too much food for my stomach, and I believe for the first time on this trip, I couldn't clear my plate. I tried, I really did, but was obliged to leave a sizeable blobette on the plate, and at least one of the sour cream oceans. There was no way dessert was going to fit in without gastronomical discomfort, but I waited for things to settle enough to allow a cappuccino to sink in. It came with whipped cream on top, so it sufficiently dessertish to fool me into thinking I had indulged in a proper holiday meal. At least I over-ate an appropriate amount for Thanksgiving. Does anyone care about historic events in American history anymore? No, we just want to eat like porkers and then sleep it off, and hopefully get paid to do so.

I really dig a lot of the Romanian architecture. It's as if the builders took a bunch of geometric shapes, and squished them into each other, giving buildings a higgledy-piggledy appearance that is simultaneously harmonious. To top it off, they have beautiful roofs with tiles and spires. These two pictures are the extreme of the top end, being Pelişor and Peleş Castles in Sinaia.



We stopped by on a day tour on the way to Bucharest, and didn't have nearly enough time to really enjoy Pelişor (Peleş was closed, and the picture was about as close as visitors could get). Built at the very beginning of the 20th century, it's full of gorgeous Art Nouveau furniture, much of it designed by resident Queen Marie. She had a hand in quite a lot of the interior design. One of the prominent male residents, either Carol I or Ferdinand I, had what appears to be a clinical obsession with time, or at least punctuality; I can't remember exactly how many clocks they had, but the number is well over one hundred, maybe over two hundred. The ticking must have been deafening. The presentation at Pelişor qualifies it one of my best castle visits. To keep the floors clean, they make you slip nifty cloth booties on over your shoes.

I wished I'd had a little more time to spend in Braşov. The winter cold I can deal with, hyperbolic comments aside, but the one downside of traveling right now is limited daylight. All is going dark at 16:00. I like walking cities at night because not only can it give them a whole new look, area lighting can draw your attention to things that are more subtle in the daylight, and which may pass unnoticed. But four hours of night sightseeing is too much for even one day, so I'm spending more evenings inside. Writing, reading, thinking. Maybe it's some primal hibernating instinct kicking in. Did I mention it's really cold? Makes me want to eat constantly.

After Romania I wanted to go to Chișinău, Moldova. The bus service directly from Braşov sounded unreliable; if not enough seats were sold, the service was cancelled, but you'd only find out when you actually showed up to catch the bus, thus stranding you in town for at least another day. Annoying as it was, I decided to catch the more expensive, yet fully reliable train from Bucharest. A group of three guys at the hostel needed to fly out of Bucharest as well, so the hostel owner drove us there as part of the Sinaia day tour. Dropping all of us off at the airport, he told me which bus to catch to take me to the train station. I knew I shouldn't have believed him, since at least a couple of people from the Bucharest hostel, which is near the train station, needed to get to the airport, and had to take a combination of bus and metro. Hopping on the bus displaying the right number, the driver couldn't be bothered to give me the time of day, telling me to "ask someone else." Turning around, the first someone else directly behind me looked like a flight attendant, so good chance she knew some English, which she did. I asked her if the bus went to the train station, and nope, it didn't. Not knowing what else to do, I just started asking her if she knew how I could get there. I didn't need to panic yet, since I had almost three hours. If I had to, I could pay for a taxi, but that would just leave me in Bucharest rush hour traffic trapped in a car instead of a bus making regular stops. The flygirl was doing her best to help me out, when another woman sitting behind her chimed up, in Romanian. She didn't seem to know English, but she picked up that I needed to get to Gara de Nord. Flygirl told me to sit with the woman, that she'd tell me what to do. Snails were progressing down the street faster than we were, and I was staring out the window for a familiar sight, trying to keep my rucksack out of the aisle, and praying that a transit officer didn't board the bus, since I didn't actually have a ticket. At some point my guide perked up and started asking around if anyone spoke English. A woman across the aisle leaned over, and together they got me sorted out for the rest of the journey. Another guy who boarded the new bus had a travel bag, and just for a sanity check, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked "Gara de Nord?" He spoke English, along with another man standing nearby. Travel bag guy hopped off before the train station, but the other one stayed on until the end. He asked if I was traveling far, and I told him Chișinău (yes, I realize you should never tell strangers where you are going, he seemed nerdy and safe), which is at least a twelve-hour overnight journey. He recommended that I get a first class ticket. What did he say exactly? Something like, "to avoid inconveniences with other passengers." He must have been referring to the Roma. Three out of three train warnings, all in the same country. I already had a second class ticket, and made up my mind to not be scared off. Besides, the thought of going up to the international ticket window and trying to upgrade the ticket with a non-English speaking ticket seller was scarier than potentially sharing a train compartment with a Romanian weirdo.

I forgot to mention something about Bucharest, something to hold up in response to its detractors. I know I geek out about European architecture. I really love it. America's historic cities have many fab buildings, but nothing coming close to the scale in Europe. I'm not too well versed in the different styles, mostly functioning on the level of I Like or I Don't Like, but contemplating Bucharest I had a notion that it looked a little Parisian. Checking what Wikipedia had to say about the city, it turns out that Bucharest has earned the moniker of Little Paris, or Paris of the East. Somehow that tidbit never made its way into disparaging reviews.

decide for yourself

The border agent stepped into the hallway of the train and turned to his radio. "Amerikanski passport." I sat and waited. It was returned a moment later, but the mini-episode was so quintessentially eastern bloc, it just make me smile. I can't remember if I've mentioned this, but when I was ten my dad took me to Germany, and we crossed the East/West German border several times. The border agents there and then were stoney-faced, the only things moving on their mugs were their eyes, flicking between passport photo and traveler. I remember one of them really taking his time to scrutinize me. What did he suspect me of? The only contraband I had was German chocolate bars. The border guards today seem a little friendlier — maybe they were told to clean up their image since Bulgaria and Romania are now in the EU. Many of the train stations were flying an EU flag, prominently placed.

I don't know if Bucharest's train station is really that much bigger than some other major stations I've been in so far, but it seems immense. It's teeming with people, and full of fast food restaurants, kiosk after kiosk selling snacks and newspapers, a kebab stand, a supermarket, at least three currency exchange offices, other random shops, a waiting room, and two ticket salons.


Chris and I walked out of the Bucharest train station into freezing wind, rain, dark, and a screaming transient woman. Making our way to the hostel, we picked up une petite fille française who chased us down from across the street. Having just arrived from a cushy student seminar held in a resort, she had lost her way trying to find the hostel. We were only a half-block away at that point, so piled through the door together, all wet backpacks and cold air, where we proceeded to confuse the bejeezus out of the guy at reception. Chris had made online reservations for both me and himself, and Frenchie had a reservation as well, but the hostel hadn't received ours. Trying to sort us out one by one, the guy at reception (Chris) was further confused because Frenchie was standing next to Chris (the Scotsman), and I was on the far side of the room. Returning Chris's passport, Chris turned to Frenchie asked if she was Elise. Not without a hint of exasperation in my voice, I said, No, I'm Elise. Ha ha! Frenchie is also Elise. Chris the receptionist struck me as a bit of a tweaker, but I had to forgive at least part of his confusion. We had to pay up front, which I hate doing, so we set off into the rain to find a bank, returning just in time to order some pizza with another American, named Ted. The hostel owner has a big poodley type dog that was running around the place. I asked what his name is. Teddy.

Everyone and their dog was down on Bucharest. Actually, no, the dogs were fine with it, since common criticism was, "there are packs of wild dogs roaming the streets." I've seen sad strays in each country I've been in, and no more than usual in Bucharest. People wrote it off as a big, dirty city full of big buildings and with few redeeming qualities, which isn't entirely untrue; depending on what specs are being used, the Parliament building can be considered the second biggest building in the world, after the Pentagon.


Yeah, some of the streets are full of potholes and puddles big enough to be considered a pond. And most of the major boulevards and avenues turn into parking lots during rush hour. The crazy amount of overhead wires and cabling form an aerial industrial cat's cradle, some of which only looks like looming electrical disaster, with strands drooping and slanting down to human head height.




But most towns have their dirt and unsightliness, and I found Bucharest to have a lot of merit. And I suppose some if its seediness imbues it with that Eastern European je ne sais quoi that I like so much. Old things that haven't been prettied up and polished for appearances. I spent my day in town walking up one main drag and returning down another. For lunch I got a massive take-out kebab – I got onto a kebab kick in Bulgaria – and strolled around eating it, but the weather was so frigid my fingers started going numb. Fortunately I finished munching it down before my fingers lost all feeling and I couldn't hold onto it anymore. The cold weather also meant the park near the Arc de Triumphe was almost completely deserted. A wind was picking up while I was there, so I decided my sightseeing was done and started walking back to the hostel. Earlier in the day I had gone past the gorgeous National Library, and figured I may as well check out the interior, since it is a public building.


Poking my nose into one of the rooms on the ground floor, one of the librarians started smiling at me, and fetched another who gave me a tour of the building and the various reading rooms, including a ride in the vintage elevator. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, it was the Stock Exchange until becoming the library in 1955. Most of the materials cannot be accessed directly by patrons, so instead they use an old pneumatic tube system to send call slips to the different floors, and then books are sent back by a book elevator. They still have row upon row of card catalogues. The one disappointing detail is that the chandeliers have been fitted with fluorescent tubes, but then again, they are on a library budget.

All day I tried to find a place to change out my Bulgarian leva, but out of the hundreds of exchange offices, no one would do it. Slightly mystifying, I thought, since Bulgaria is really quite close. When I did find one office that said they would, they tried to shortchange me. I told the guy his values didn't make sense, and he gave me some bogus explanation of old lei and new lei, punching up numbers on a calculator to demonstrate. At least, that's what I think he was saying, since he didn't speak fluent English. Regardless, the numbers he was showing me didn't make sense on any level, so I said, uh huh, and took my leva back. Swapping cash at an exchange office is sort of inevitable when you're dealing with multiple currencies, but it always pays to research the exchange rate and perform your own calculations before going to one.

I stopped at the opera house to see if any tickets were available for the evening, but found only a very impatient woman selling tickets for future performances. It was just as well, since I ended up going out to dinner with a group from the hostel, meeting a Romanian girl that Frenchie had arranged to meet through Hospitality Club, which is a social networking club for travelers who want to meet locals, and maybe get free places to stay. We all wanted Romanian cuisine, which includes chicken, chicken, chicken, and pork. Being a chicken in Romania is an occupational hazard. That is, more than usual. The menu even included "fried chicken scraps." You know that game where you listen to a piece of music, and try to guess the song as soon as possible? Our waiter could do that with our orders. The first syllable would barely be out of our mouths, and he'd be nodding, repeating it, and scribbling on his paper pad. My Romanian food adventure, breaking with my self-imposed dietary restrictions, was a bite of tripe that someone else ordered. I really couldn't taste anything except the soup it came in, which was heavily vinegared, so I have no flavor sensations to report. Cow stomach lining aside, I wouldn't eat it again for the texture and consistency, which was a bit squishier than I like my savory foods. Texture can make or break a food for me. If mushrooms or eggplant isn't prepared properly, I don't care for them. I always thought it was a little funny when I was a vegetarian, since mushrooms and eggplant are two veggie staples, and I found both of them sort of a chore to eat.

Afterwards two other Romanians girls joined us and took us to a club I never would have walked into by myself. It took a little while to settle in, since it was practically empty, yet the music volume was shaking the walls. After a while it filled up, mostly good music was played, I drank two cola colas, and a few of us strolled homeward in the dead of night. Someone had commented earlier that the hostel was located in an unsavory part of town, and sure enough, on the way back, we were asked if we were interested in a prostitute. "My friend, you want a girl?" No sir, keep walking. There were three of us at that point, and I'm not sure who the offer was intended for. Sleazy pimps aside, I have to say that there hasn't been any time during this trip where I've thought I had walked into a place or situation that I really shouldn't have, and needed to get out of immediately. I have had a few prickly scalp moments, based on things like drunken shouting around a corner, but none of them ever came to anything.

I left the next day, and after my day of nippy, overcast weather with the precipitation variety pack, a blue sky was shining. Which probably meant it was going to be even colder. Even so, I had a good day in Bucharest. Proof to not always believe what you're told about the worth of destinations. Travel wherever you want and make up your own mind. If you end up not liking it somewhere, at least you'll know exactly why, rather than someone else's why.

the view from out the window

I used to have this mental hang-up about traveling during the day, feeling like I was wasting valuable sightseeing time. I've gotten over that, having realized that daylight road travel is a quality way to see any country. First class view from a second class seat. Not always of first class sights, though. Bussing from Plovdiv to Veliko Tarnovo went through misty, wooded, snow-covered mountains, passed by a church with a shining golden roof nestled up in the trees, but also through dreary industrial towns, full of ratty apartment blocks so dismally similar that they could only be distinguished from one another by numbers painted on the outside. One of the hostelers in VT asked me if there was anything about Bulgaria that came as a surprise. I danced around the answer, since the Bulgarian owner of the hostel was sitting at the table with us, but the poverty in some of the areas was really unexpected. Of course I was looking at most things from the outside, and drawing some conclusions based on just exactly how much some of dwellings seemed to be caving in on themselves, or otherwise falling apart. And perhaps being there in the winter colored my perception. There was some rain and a lot of mist, which cast a cold look over everything. There's something a little doleful about seeing a neglected line of washing sitting out in the rain and cold. It'll never get dry that way.

Hiker's Hostel in VT is the older sister to the Plovdiv hostel, and was another cozy affair, complete with a kitten. Darko, having grown up around hostelers and their, at times, terrible eating habits, has a Pavlovian response to crinkling cellophane. It doesn't matter at all what's being unwrapped. Determined to get to an empty chocolate bar wrapper in my hand, he made a few gentle forays before simply giving my thumb a good chomp. This only resulted in being kicked off my lap. No chocolate for him. I hope he doesn't have rabies. I can still see where his fang went in. He was still cuddly, though, unlike another resident I encountered. Heading to the shower, the hostel owner advised me to use the downstairs bathroom, since it's closer to the water heater. I walked in, took a long look at the centipede with crazy long legs hanging out on the ceiling, and went right upstairs to the other bathroom.


I didn't do a heck of a lot in VT except meander around and get a feel of the town. There's the sprawling Tsarevets fortress that left me underwhelmed. My ancient ruin fatigue still hasn't gone away entirely. It does, however, have the thrilling-sounding Execution Rock, where the condemned were shoved off to plunge into the river. I was hoping for something suitably gruesome, but it just looks like a, well, a rock. And I guess the river has moved, since anyone shoved off today would bounce down a cliff to a painful, yet dry, landing. Provided there's a paying audience, at night the fortress is lit up for a garish light and sound show, which can been seen, but not heard, from the hostel balcony. Cables for the lights, and the lights themselves, in big banks, are visible all over the fortress, diminishing any old historical site ambience. The terrain around town is kind of interesting, formed by a bunch of natural plateaus with walls so tidy and upright that they look like they were made with a giant cookie cutter.


There's a monastery a few kilometers away, accessible by a hike over the hills. Setting off through the misty morning, I quickly realized that it was going to be a harder hike than I anticipated, and I was wearing too many layers. Rain and wet had turned most of the trails to mud, slippery as slippery can be. After a couple of close calls, I had an inkling that I wasn't going to get out of there unsullied. I made it as far as a detour around some waterfalls, where I bumped into a old goatherd and his flock, complete with big clonking bells around their necks. He had at least three dogs, two of whom barked barked barked at me until he called them off. He was pretty friendly, speaking to me in Bulgarian with a smile on his face. No idea what he was saying. Past the waterfalls the path started going vertical. The only way to progress was climbing up rungs hammered into the rocks, or holding onto cables installed next to the steep stairways. I weathered all that well enough, but returning to the main path, picking my way down a very short slope, my feet slid out from under me. I could feel it happening, yet was powerless to stop the inevitable drop into the mud. I was holding onto a tree at the time, but even that wasn't enough to keep me from going down. I decided the hike was over, and started slogging back to the hostel. If nothing else, I needed to wash my clothes and get them dry before leaving the next day. The hostel washing machine swished my clothes mud-free in what turned out to be the longest wash cycle ever. Getting bored and hungry waiting for it to finish, I strolled down to town, bought kebabs, strolled back to the hostel, ate my kebabs, and it still wasn't through. Not feeling motivated to do much else, I just sat around for the rest of the day, watching soccer games and talking to people. There were two groups of Erasmus (European university exchange program) students at the hostel. I don't particularly care for groups that take over hostels, especially small establishments that have dime-sized common spaces. You either need to work your way into the group, or flit around the outside; there isn't a whole lot of middle ground. The bigger group was mostly French students studying in Thessaloniki, and were all nice enough, we were just on different wavelengths. They had a Bulgarian guide who, for some reason, would never acknowledge me when I was in the room. Kind of odd. I just drifted off into a corner of the table and tuned them out. A smaller group from Plovdiv were quite amiable, though, and included two Polish girls who gave me recommendations for traveling in Poland and listening to music in Moldova. After seeing their shoes and wardrobe, I in turn recommended that they not hike to the monastery the next day, then turned my trousers over on the space heater.

I hadn't had too much good coffee recently. Both the Hiker's Hostels serve coffee all day, but since their java brew is too strong even for me, I had instead been slugging down my alternate hot beverage of choice, black tea with cream and sugar. I noticed coffee vending machines sprinkled all over VT, and waiting in the train station with a pocket full of coins that were about to be useless, I decided to see what they could offer. A pretty good cappuccino is what; appearances can be deceiving. I think I should petition to get a couple of these installed at work. I've stayed at a couple of hostels that have sort of a countertop version of these, and I love them. You just push a button, and a lovely little hot drink is squirted out. It's like an electric caffeine cow.


Leaving VT by train the next day, I got my final views of Bulgaria. Areas next to train tracks seem to fit a few broad categories — industrial complexes, farmland, undeveloped land, and economically depressed neighborhoods. Pristine land blends into into piles of trash and junker cars that will never drive again. We passed by one neighborhood that only really qualified as a slum; a bunch of run-down shacks with rippling shingle roofs and dirt yards arranged along muddy roads. I don't want to make it sound like Bulgaria is the most poverty-stricken area I've visited recently, I think it's just that travel circumstances here allowed me to see more than I did in other countries. Maybe it has something to do with the amount of trash everywhere, especially bottles, specifically 2-liter beer bottles. They're littered absolutely all over the place, and recycling isn't a priority. I didn't think about it until now, but I suppose I'm not used to seeing bottles and cans scattered everywhere, because at home they're mostly collected for recycling. But I've also been chugging along at a fairly brisk pace recently, and haven't seen nearly enough of these countries as I should to come to any sort of general conclusions. I saw what I saw. Hopefully I'll be back someday to see more of what it has to offer. I wish I had a chance to visit Ruse, since the architecture there has earned it the nickname of Little Vienna. I only found out about it after I had my ticket out of the country. That's what I get for showing up without having done any research.

I had a brain cramp in VT, standing in front of an ATM. All the countries in this area still have their own currency, and deciding how much money to withdraw always involves some complex calculations — accommodation + food + travel + miscellaneous items, throw in how much time is left in the country, and factor in the fact that carrying a huge wad of currency isn't always the smartest move. It wouldn't be so complicated if my home bank didn't stick me with all sorts of foreign transaction fees, but as it is I try to make at a somewhat educated guess on how much cash to get. I withdrew enough to pay the hostel in VT, and then at least one night in Bucharest. Duh. Bucharest is in Romania.

spontaneous travel

When I was in Istanbul, I had to figure out how to get to Slovenia. The overland route is through the Balkans. Not having done any research on anything between Turkey and Slovenia, and in general being woefully uneducated about this section of the world, I made some lame excuse, mostly to myself, that I would visit the Balkans at a later date. Really, it was fear of the unknown. I didn't know anything about the Balkans, and I was too scared to just go in and figure it out. So I flew directly to Ljubljana. But then I started talking to people, changed my itinerary multiple times to include whatever sounded interesting, and city by city, worked my way into the Balkans, which aren't scary at all. Well, it's not just where you go, it's how you get there; had I come directly to the Balkans from Turkey, I most likely would have had a much different experience, since I wouldn't have the accumulated knowledge from my fellow travelers. Originally planning on going to Prague after Sarajevo, I changed my itinerary to go there after Belgrade, but Gaby and Chris convinced me that heading further east would offer more rewarding travel. Trying to hold my ground over a plate of pasta, I threw down the "Prague is supposed to be the most beautiful city in Europe" argument. Gaby defended her pro-Bulgaria stance over a half-eaten pizza, informing me that the people who were feeding me that line haven't been to half the places I have, which made me feel pretty pleased with myself, I can tell you that. But brushing my ego to a high gloss aside, they were right. Right now I'd rather be going places that don't appear weekly in newspaper travel guides, and which haven't been polished, overpriced, and irrevocably changed by tourism. I want places that challenge me by not having familiar comforts, like English and informative signage. I still want to see Prague, and will try to get there before the end. But I wish I could see it as it was twenty years ago, not the way it is today.

So that's how I ended up in Plovdiv, not Prague, a mere eleven hours train ride from Istanbul on the Balkans Express. Still traveling with Chris the Scotsman (remarkably coherent 96% of the time), we caught a sleeper train from Belgrade to Sofia. I stayed awake a bit to write in my journal, since I'm way behind. Making time for journal writing is hard. You'd think that with no work, and nothing to do but pootle around seeing the world, you'd have some free time to sit and write, but nooo...it's remarkably easy to kill entire days at a fell swoop. You roll out of your bunk bed, wander around strange cities, chat with people, share some meals, and then it's midnight and your journal is still tucked away in your bag. Days turn into weeks and then oops...I'm starting to forget what happened. Not big things, just little details. So I was trying to catch up, and asked Chris if the light was keeping him awake. Nope, he said he was just resting, listening to the train wheels kchunk kchunk kchunk through the dark. Train wheels are the sound of travel. It's the lullaby of the road.

We only stayed in Sofia long enough the find ATMs in order to get enough Bulgarian lev to purchase tickets to Plovdiv. I didn't see too much my first 48 hours in town; the drippy nose that had manifested in Belgrade developed into a full-blown cold in Plovdiv. It was as good a place as any to get sick, since the hostel had a cozy common room with wireless and groovy tunes playing all day. I sat around for one day, and managed to kick it into submission. Maybe the reason I got well so quickly was all the food we ate at a local comfort food establishment, Dayana Restaurant. Dayana was like the Bulgarian Denny's. The menu was glossy and full of pictures, and half of the waitresses looked like Eurovision Song Contest hopefuls. Bulgarian cuisine includes lots of innards and other bits that I'm not accustomed to seeing on menus, but maybe that's because I (a) rarely eat out and (b) don't eat a whole lot of meat (when at home). Eating the safer, yet intriguing, items for the first couple of nights (cheese balls fried in egg and coated in cornflakes. cornflakes!), I threw caution to the wind and ordered chicken pope's noses on the last night. Everyone was sort of curious about them, and for some reason, I kept forgetting to look them up during the hours I spent camped in the common room in front of the computer. By this time, I'd had several meals out with Chris during our travels together, during which he'd worked his way through at least one petting zoo. He seems willing and able to ingest pretty much anything edible, especially meaty, but his palate was finally defeated by a single pope's nose. Do you know what they are? Chicken butts. Just a little piece, but a chicken butt nonetheless. Chris couldn't stomach one. The guy adores haggis and looks forward to blood pudding for breakfast, but a little piece of chicken cheek sticks in his craw. Go figure! In all fairness, I didn't find them all that appealing, either; they were liked a lump of fried fat with a nubbin of gristle or cartilage embedded in the middle. Biting directly into this bit was what put Chris off his feed. Sort of the gastronomical equivalent of arriving in California for a holiday, and having a major earthquake hit moments after arriving. Speaking of, I kind of feel like I missed all the earthshaking fun back home.


With my nose drips drying up, I felt well enough to take in the town, Plovdiv goes way back in time, first settled sometime around 5000 BC. It's come a long way since then, being one of Bulgaria's most affluent cities, but horse-drawn carriages still clatter down the street hauling loads past casinos and concrete highrises. A number of historical homes in the old town area are house museums, none of which I bothered going into. Most of them have pretty decorations painted on the exteriors.


I did go into the Gallery of Fine Arts, since one of the guidebooks made mention of a few pieces that sounded interesting enough. No one was in the foyer when I walked in, but the door jingled a bell which brought a few ladies out of various offices. After taking my admission fee (one lev, which makes it the cheapest museum to date), one of the women preceded me up the stairs, turning on all the lights. I lingered on the stairs, feigning engrossment at the portraits displayed there, in order to give her a head start. The gallery is spread over several rooms on two floors, and includes quite a few eye-worthy works from Bulgarian artists from the last couple of centuries. Somewhere on the second floor, I noticed that the ticket seller was coming though behind me and turning off the lights as soon as I left each room. And since it takes far less time to flick off a light switch than it does to take in one room of art, she then lurked in the dark room until I moved on. I was feeling under pressure to take it all in quickly, and move on, which is a crappy way to view art. I wanted to stay in there longer, but lurking woman was getting on my nerves, so I just breezed through the last room and hallway, and bugged out. Maybe my one lev admission covered the electricity costs for a viewing, and I had stayed long enough to run the meters into the red.

Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and while street signs are posted in both Cyrillic and Roman, as well as the names of some shops, not a whole lot else is. At least, not to any level of consistency. Restaurants will most likely have an English menu, but the bakery pastries all have mystery fillings (I managed to divine a fruity filling rather than a meaty one). Needing to send off some postcards, I headed to the hulking telephone and post office building by the pedestrian mall, and stepped straight into a Kafka novel. Offices offering various services were scattered about, and at least half of them had a line of people waiting out front. Some of them even had some type of uniformed officer regulating admission beyond the doors. Mysterious pictogram signs directed those who were lost to their destination; that is, if they could make out what the signs meant:


After a couple of bewildering turns around the interior, I finally found the post office. Thankfully there wasn't a line out in front; given my profound lack of Bulgarian, I wouldn't even know if I was standing in the correct line until I got to the front. It was full of people gathered around a couple of tables, addressing envelopes and referring to very worn postal code books. Observing several people with stamps, I figured I was in the right place, and found the window that helpfully had a small sign in English reading "Correspondence." Getting into the queue, I got my first taste of the eastern European tradition of ignoring the queue. Or, more like they don't have the concept of the queue. Describing what happened to Chris, who's traveled throughout most of eastern Europe, he nodded. "If you're not first, you're last." People descend on the window from every direction, perhaps casting a glance at the person they just shoved in front of, but usually not. Eye contact makes you weaker. Taking a lesson from the blonde who nonchalantly cut in front of me, I muscled my way to the window, at which point all was peachy. Since most of my cards required two stamps, the woman who sold them to me carefully tore each denomination from the sheet, and arranged one on each card. Things were looking good until I tried to find the mail drop. I would have thought that the inside of the post office would have an obvious mail drop, but nope, nothing there. Deciding that I would find one outside, I just left with my successfully stamped cards. I had to ask Peter at the hostel where to find a mailbox, and it turns out I had walked past mail slots in the wall on my way out. Not that I would have known which one to use, since they were all labeled in Cyrillic. Peter wrote out the characters for the international slot, and once I found them I had to spend a couple of minutes standing there with my scrap of paper, going through each of the labels letter by letter until I found the right one. Turns out someone had helpfully scribbled the word "Abroad" next to it, just in tiny letters. Despite the happy ending, I decided I wouldn't be sending any more postcards from Bulgaria.