Here are some quick views from the bustling capitol of Bulgaria, Sofia. We wandered the city for a few days, getting lost here & there. On the way we discovered sprawling parks, elaborately adorned theaters + churches, sky-scratching communist statues, hot-sulfur mineral springs and of course the famed yellow-paved roads. As you can tell from the end the city also served as a crash-course in Cyrillic ... but I'm afraid we're not quite there yet in our understanding. ;) The music is from a great collection of Bulgarian gypsy music you can find here.
Travelers need to celebrate holidays too! It's not always easy though. Of course it can never be the same as at home, with all the family and all their family recipes - but we can try our best! First requirements: a kitchen, preferably with cooking supplies. Nate & I searched AirBnB for a special Thanksgiving hide-out that possessed not only the typical stove-top and refrigerator but also an oven. We actually haven't had an oven since we left the US + I didn't realize how much I've been missing it. To our momentary dismay, our landlord stated upon arrival that the appliance is not "100% working" and not to use it if we don't need it. But I think Thanksgiving abroad qualified as a need. We gave it a careful test our first night here and following that success we 'tested' it every night after - ovens are wonderful things! Next we had to inventory our supplies: a good pile of plates, forks, spoons, glasses. No medium or large bowls of any kind, no cooking dishes except for one oven-sized baking sheet. Dull knives. Time to think creatively. First, we went through our memories of Thanksgivings past to discern the must-haves for our holiday table. Stuffing reigned supreme for both of us, followed by pie and maybe some veggies. Really, we just needed to make stuffing happen. So we found a large supermarket 2 miles north of us and hiked up with backpacks to scout our options. It took some doing, but three marketplaces and six miles later we had developed a menu and obtained our supplies. We banked a lot on our one pan: stuffed mushrooms, a free-form apple galette instead of a pie (because we have no pan), stuffing in a pumpkin (because we have no pan) and so on. The pumpkin was actually hilarious and frustrating - every store had them for a week before thanksgiving, but then they all disappeared. A pumpkin hunt the night before Thanksgiving lead to the discovery of one of 2 remaining pumpkins in the city, with the smallest being 5 kilos or 11 pounds. So we took it home and spent about two hours carving a bowl-like hole into this monstrously dense squash. In the end, with all that buttery squash/stuffing goodness, it tasted delicious. :) Happy Thanksgiving all! We miss you! :)While in Tirana, Nate + I wandered the jagged streets and watched the city go by. On our very first day, after busing in from Montenegro, searching for our hostel, downing a massive dinner and a liter of celebratory wine ('we made it!'), we stumbled upon a pop-up carnival that was either in the act of being built or broken down...it was hard to tell. We followed a group of similarly silly kids onto a spinning sleigh ride of a Americana-attired giant woman who's skirt whirled and shook us into oblivion. It was a perfect introduction to the capitol of Albania - a bit unnerving and potentially nauseating but amazingly diverting in the process! :) The music in this video is by Orges & the Ockus Rockus Band. There was a huge party event at the bar we were working at and this exuberant Albanian band performed a few hours of rollicking music. This song seemed perfect for our current travelling lifestyle - check out their video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrQY2eL5RMk. Tirana (locally Tiranë) is the most madly exuberant city we've visited so far. It's the sprawling, winding, screeching capital of Albania. As we first neared the city, the scent of burning wood and plastics seeped through the windows. The sight of rushing trucks, cars, mopeds, carts, dog packs + livestock writhed around us in a zigzag swirl, reminiscent of India's notorious roadways. Bus riders waited on the roadside with crates of live chickens and slayed goats over their shoulders. The clanging accelerated as we pushed through the perpetual rush hour, nearing the city center, rounding a traffic circle centered on a domineering metal statue of a two-headed black, howling eagle from the flag of Albania. We came to Tirana to volunteer at the local backpackers hostel. This magical garden and art-filled oasis in the city center became our comfortable home for two weeks - where we worked as bartenders morning and night. We would wake at 7 to clean the bar/garden from the night before, make cappuccino, latte, espresso, fresh squeeze orange juice, and brainstorm/test that night's cocktail special. In the evening we served wine, cocktails, our daily concoction and of course many many cases of beer - for as the vast majority of tourists to Albania seem to originate in Germany a fierce demand for lager seemed to follow. In addition to bartending, I was able to paint a new chalkboard-inspired menu to hang over the bar. It was a wonderful job as it allowed us to relax behind a bar, chat with fellow adventurers and hear their shared experiences and insights. In off hours we would go out to eat or roam the city together - even went on a trip to see La Traviata at the national opera house! We made a glorious little family in our short time there. Typically, we would have midday off (except when the bar required shopping/restocking) and we would gallivant about town. Tirana is not like other touristic capitols like DC or Paris, it does not have an edified list of MUST SEE places, so visitors develop different tactics for exploring. Nate & I would typically hear or read about one of Tirana's many diverse restaurants spread far + wide or a mysterious forest-park or art gallery, point generally in that direction and then wander for miles on foot until we discovered it. That way we let the layered city slowly wash over us in all it's frenzied diversity (video next post will elaborate). I still don't know how I feel about Tirana. It's totally daunting/overwhelming/sickening on the one hand + intriguing/welcoming/inspiring on the other. The public space was like roaring static - a mesmerizing constant noise of sights, sounds and scents. Every element fought for your attention: every concrete high-rise flickered with hanging laundry, neon lights flashed in storefronts, merchants and beggars lined the sidewalks, the roads raged with we-better-ruuuun-traffic, even the mammoth blocks of communist-era monoliths demanded your eyes with their stripped-down enormity. Clearly, a main challenge to the city is its car situation - hundreds of thousands of out-dated high-guzzling cars, running on leaded gas (that's illegal in the EU), ruling the streets and creating a constant tan-exhaust tinge to the air. Pedestrians are clearly on the bottom of the food chain. Many large intersections lack even a simple traffic-signal. The large foot-commuting population of Tirana seems to migrate by building up a critical mass of humans on the road side, then @ the slightest hesitation of one driver, collectively takes the street/cross to the next intersection! It's like a million revolutions everyday. :) But the subsequent pollution is significant - It's been labelled "the Pollution Capital of Europe" since 2004. Nate and I got sore throats, headaches and nausea everyday when we went for walks - had to sleep it off with uncharacteristic pre-work naps everyday. I even had a 3 day bout of vomiting and sleeping ... although that may have been more virus related. Regardless, Tirana has challenged my bodily health. Now, before we get too judgmental about the capitol of Albania, we must realize that they are rebounding from some serious and long-lasting repression and turmoil under communism. As one Albanian bar visitor retorted to us tourists and our auto-centric complaints: "We've only had cars for ten years - what do you expect!?" Seriously! I can't imagine if my country has been so controlled and shut down for decades that I did not have the right as a citizen to transport myself anywhere. Most Albanians were not even allowed to leave their town, let-alone drive solo about the country. They were expected to perform their assigned labor in their town of birth forever. Albania's emerging into a new world now, with new freedoms and rights to work out. And as you can tell from the length of this post, I am intrigued by the city. I'm am grateful for all the smiling and helpful strangers and the friends I found, even through the smog. Life in the CityTirana has so much good Food!From Mostar, we rode one all-day bus through 3 countries and 4 passport checks to the enclosed coastal city of Kotor in Montenegro. The city sits in a fascinating and picturesque geography - a deep canyon between steeply sloped mountains draws the Adriatic sea inland for over 17 miles. It's called a ria (I just learned) - a drowned river valley that forms a highly irregular coast shape. In the Bay of Kotor the sea-water becomes still like a winding finger-lake & is chilled by adjoining river waters. The mountains themselves encircle the town, creating an unusually moist micro-climate. A thunderstorm rolled into the city during our first night and seemed to be held captive by the mountains into the morning - our whole apartment was quaking and glowing in flashes! We had only one day to explore the city, as we had a deadline to make in Albania (next post explains), so there was a bit of pressure to do Kotor justice! So we woke up early after our stormy night, strapped on our hiking boots and strode out to ramble through old town and up its many stairs, climbing ever higher through the famed Fortress of Kotor. Like many of this region's cities, Kotor has a layered history of Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman influences - each empire imparting it's own culture to the small city. The product of which is an enchanting medieval Old Town, cut into a coastal cliff and a steep network of stone walls & stairs. Fortifications that climb over 1200 feet (1350+ steps!) to the Castle of San Giovanni at the top of one peak. Luckily for us, the storm quieted and we were left with a pleasantly overcast day. We ate a morning pizza (of course!) and set off, up the mountain first. Despite the height, it was a surprisingly relaxing climb. Because the path was filled with irresistible vistas and locales, our determined climb was intermixed with many pauses. I'm not going to describe the experience too much because the video below provides a taste. But I will say, our greatest challenge was not the climb itself, but that it's enticing views to other mountain trails and embedded ruins and distant locales made me want to stay and explore for weeks! The mountains around Kotor seem to be saturated with grassy hikes, rock climbing and water rafting adventures. Guess I'll have to return for more one day! :D Nate and I first heard the music in this video while meandering through the incense-filled Church of Saint Lucas. The Serbian Choral Society called Jedinstvo (Unity) originated in Kotor in 1839. They have many beautiful songs with layered voices in swooping harmonies and sounds, but I opted for a more stripped down song to tell the epic tale of Nate's journey up the mountain. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to have gained too much haughtiness from my giving him a whole town's-worth of camera attention...I'll keep you posted on ego-developments ;) Cat Museum!? Well, of course!When we had so few hours in our Kotor visit, it was a struggle to determine how to best use our precious minutes. But the true meaning of life prevailed and led our tired feet to a strange + hidden courtyard, to a museum that is filled only with one obsessed Montenegrin heiress' collection of cat-theme printed products. Although this image to the left, in my mind highlights the brilliant potential of cat-themed card arts (please look beyond my camera reflection), the museum also contains a plethora of materials from postcards, to celebrity portraits, stamps, children's & adult books, magazines, posters, risque photography and so much more! It was really hilarious. I think these one's speak for themselves ;) Enjoy! A few MONTENEGRIN DishesPizza reviews by Nate!KOTOR While immersed in the stoic landscape of Mostar with its war-torn vistas intertwining bustling street markets I came to the realization that both the city and I would benefit from having a pizza place in town, but sadly that was not the case. I went pizzaless until we arrived to Kotor. Of the many outdoor restaurants that seamlessly line the streets through the piazzas in Kotor’s old town, we chose one with an awning to protect us from the looming storm clouds as well as an extensive pizza list. At first glance, I deemed the crust too thick and uncrispy. Little did I know that beneath the cheese the salty grease of two cured meats and the light sauce began creating a flavor sponge. Upon biting a slice, an unforeseen orchestration of flavors began as sour cream and fresh tomatoes mixed with the yoke of a fried egg and cheese. A true testament to the old saying - Never judge a pizza by its crust It was not the prettiest pizza, seemingly devoid of fresh ingredients. Our Fungi pizza arrived looking like something I took out of the freezer and baked too long, but it sufficiently soothed my breakfast pizza needs. It was the first pizza that we encountered that was accompanied by a gravy boat of ketchup aka saucy tomato-water. This topping added a welcomed sweetness to a somewhat flavorless albeit warm cheesy baked bread disk. Once again green olives with pits intact were strewn atop the pizza. Their presence still baffles me as it only hinders the (speed) eating process. Regardless, the olives often have a nice flavor depending on the type and duration of the brine they have been soaking in, if you like olives. Ultimately the pizza was just the fuel one would need to climb the castle walls of Kotor – perhaps to an epic tune of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack? This video mixes different sights and sounds from our short visit to the enchanting and haunting city of Mostar, the largest city in the country's southern region - Herzegovina. Although we arrived towards the end of the tourism season, the Old Town, bazaar and Stari Most, were buzzing with locals, visitors from Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Asia & Australia (and of course the cats and dogs that seem to rule the streets :) ).Their soft roars merge with the sounds of rivers that weave between + beneath city streets, the calls to prayer that echoes between mosques and the persistent quiet that infiltrates many small places in this city. Mostar was a challenging city for me to visit. It was the first time I have entered a recently active war zone. The first time I've seen a landscape with marks of brutality and opposition in every view. When we first entered Mostar, our bus drove through tight streets of stone + cement homes and shop fronts. From my window I could see the walls race by, flat walls turned to lace with bullet holes. I had heard of the war in Bosnia, remember many young people joining my classes in high school as their families had to flee to other countries, but never could imagine the destruction that happened here - never expected a town still in ruins so many years later. So when we first arrived I was afraid - not sure that I was safe after the startling first views. I saw the graffiti on the walls screaming political or football inclinations, but dripping in ethnic tension. It seems as though the divisions between the Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs continues to permeate all realms of life. One day I saw a group of five or six men working on a concrete building on my street. A couple loaded gravel from the street into wheelbarrows, hooked them to ropes as others hauled them to the fourth floor to mix for concrete. They were repairing a battered building or finishing one of many that were frozen in construction many years ago. Their tools were so simple and their work seemed so slow and heavy. I saw the effort in recovery - a layer of Mostar that seems slow and heavy, recovering from so many wounds. It took an entire day to relax & realize that the blasted walls are not a sign to fear, but in fact a backdrop of a familiar kind of everyday life. The town mixes the picturesque and touristic Old Town with quiet mansion-laden residential areas, high-rises, river parks and buzzing university campuses, all with a mix of war-ruins within. It's a bizarre, sad and lovely town, filled with lively energy, good food, music, & smiling, resilient faces. The famous bridge of Mostar, the Stari Most, presents a wonderful story of the city on its own. It was first commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent, a massive feat of Ottoman construction - 90 feet long and 64 feet above the river's surface. It stood for four and a half centuries, connecting the east and west towns. Until in 1993 it was exploded during the Croat-Bosniak war, for strategy or intentional destruction of a shared culture. Many people (mostly Muslim Bosniaks) were stranded on the west side with little food, water and no electricity for months. A small cable bridge was raised in its place. In 2001 an international coalition sponsored the reconstruction of the Stari Most, hiring many experts in Ottoman-style construction to reproduce the bridge using many of the original stones. As the bridge was once destroyed in hate of ethnic differences it was raised again in hope of joining these diverse peoples. The struggle goes on... Om Nom Bosnian Foods :)Finally! Talk of foods! Eating is really one of my favorite things to do - fortunately for me it is also a powerful way to experience a place, its history, its culture & environment and to share wonderful hours of pleasure with others. Nate and I have both traveled in Italy + were surprised at how much Croatian food reminded us of Italian cuisines: with so much thin, stone-fired pizza, & seafood-filled pasta and risotto available. However there are also many exciting varieties of sea-food stews, hammered meats and potato-y greens to expand the local food experience. Many of these delights are shown below and there is a brief discussion of the slow-home style foods we had in Solin in the last post. & Introducing a new segment!I gotta say, I think it's about time Nate joined this effort + began sending his important opinions about our travels into the internet abyss. For this effort we have devised a segment, which Nate will write about the topic most dear to his heart...and maybe mine too. So without further ado: Pizza Reviews by Nate!DUBROVNIK It all started while walking the walls of the old city in Dubrovnik. We spotted a quaint little restaurant below with a nautical theme and local dishes including cuttlefish risotto and ćevapčići, but we decided on the pizza. Cooked in a wood-fire oven, the pizza had a crispy thin crust - the Italian influence has done wonders on the local cuisine. Croatian cheeses tend to be a bit saltier than what we would normally find on a pizza but it pairs well with the ham and mushrooms that also topped the pizza. Overall, the pizza was quite satisfying after a long walking day; a good balance of flavor and crunch which set the bar high on our future expectations in our culinary endeavors. From our first meal we learned two things: 1. What a liter of wine looks like 2. More research needed to be conducted in regards to the local delicacies otherwise known as pizza What is pizza? Crust, Sauce, Cheese, Toppings? Or A slice of heaven. The second night we found ourselves back within the walls of old town after spending some time at the beach. We starting looking for a place suggested on Tripadvisor, but after getting somewhat lost in the web of streets we happened to walk by a pizzeria with a walk-up window for slices. But upon turning the corner and we found that Oliva also had open tables to eat at, and we did.
SPLIT We arrived in Split after spending 4+ hours on the road to find our apartment host Mirta at the bus station. We asked her the important questions about the city the location of the beaches, attractions and of course the best pizza place in town.
The restaurant is small, tucked into a little portion of excess space created by the old fortress wall and the backs of newer construction. The menu is full of interesting items but more importantly pizzas. Only a half-liter of wine this time we decided on the bacon mushroom and shrimp/scampi pizza with some leaves on it (arugula). The location removes you from the on going choreographed dance of people within the city streets and transports you to a far quieter place where you can just stare at an ancient wall and eat pizza just as many famous roman emperors probably did before me. The pizza arrives, an extra-large since who could say no to an upgrade for only 5 kuna (less than a dollar) and more pizza! The crust was a little thicker than in Dubrovnik, but the use of fresh and seemingly local flavor combinations made the meal: cured ham + Croatian cheese paired with a sweet tomato sauce showcases the flavors of fresh raw arugula (with authentic bug-chewed edges) and shrimp. Since it was the best meal we had had in Split so far it was instantly put on our list of backup restaurants if we happened not to find anywhere else to eat during our stay . . . and we may have returned the next day for another pizza. This time, for a late evening vegetarian pizza with mushrooms, onions, peppers and the surprise addition of corn. As almost expected now, another wood-oven baked crust, sweet sauce and toppings that are a bit al dente. Every pizza so far has had some sort of olive thrown on top sometime during the baking process making a warm olive with a cool pit (although the pitted olives do slow down the eating process). Flavor combinations and portion size definitely won me over in Split, and there are still a few more pizzas including a steak and mustard seed, which I hope to try some time soon. SOLIN Then there was Solin. Great place: if you like looking at a sprawling communist-style city skyline with a spotting of Mexican mafia-owned industries along the riverfront or cascading mountain ranges that reach out of mosquito infested pine forests. After volunteering for a few days, we went down the street to the local internet source and bar and spent the day enjoying air conditioning and secondhand smoke. But since the cafes do not serve food, we got hungry and decided to venture out to the Smurf themed fast food chain - Štrumf! Štrumf had a list of about ten different pizzas of which they actually possessed toppings for one - ham, cheese, and mushrooms. Made to order, it took less than 10 minutes to: top, bake and ask me if I wanted any mayo or ketchup (actual ketchup at this place) squirted on top from the sandwich bar they also had. I declined but opted for some corn since it was such an interesting addition to the pizza in Split. The taste was one you would probably expect of a Smurf-themed fast food chain, the crust was light and doughy, the cheese was goopy and it was warm so it pretty much satisfied the most basic needs one has after spending 8 hours in a Croatian internet café. It was not the best pizza I have had on the trip, but it still beat some of the gas station pizzas I have had in the past. So if you are in Solin and you need a place to eat, Štrumf pizza is probably just what you need, because - hey, you are in Solin. SPLIT - REVISITED We took a break from the natural scenery of Solin and returned to Split for a day. We arrived too early to head back to Maslina, so we decided to walk some of the city and check out the main beach area. The coast was shaped by rock formations, which break the waves and keep both the water and the mood of the sandy cove nice and calm. The coast transitions from sandy beach to cement as it wraps around the bay where a variety of restaurants and even a casino have established themselves. Luckily we discovered another pizza place after a day of swimming (and sea-bathing as explained in the last post). A seemingly American inspired place - Pizzeria Karaka, with pizzas named after movies and actors including DeNiro. We decided on the gorgonzola, blue cheese and chicken pizza and I also opted to add mushrooms.
And lastly, in remembranceNate's camera was a good little machine, could go underwater to 50 feet, made waaaay better panoramas than mine and had a pretty successful macro setting for the essential flower interior shots. However, for no reason that we understand, his camera - though just a year old - has ceased to function in anyway. So while we are grateful for it's time and are sad at it's loss, I must also say - don't buy the Nikon AW110. Here are some of shots from the cameras last recoverable moments:
Since earning my undergrad degree, I've been increasingly into voluntourism and the concept of giving while travelling. This idea does not rely entirely on the typical exchange of money for goods & services, but a more interwoven exchange of knowledge, labor and experience between hosts and travelling volunteers. It can be a way to travel near and far, connect with local people and learning from their efforts, expertise and life styles. To do this Nate and I set up a joint account on Workway.info - the website works very similarly to WWOOFing, which I've posted about in the past, in that it connects thousands of volunteers with thousands of their potential hosts around the world. The work and living situations vary greatly from host to host (which demands quite a bit of research and communication) but the basic rules are the exchange of labor hours for some kind of food and housing. So the first place we volunteered at on our trip is in a town called Solin, an industrial town full of cement plants and stone cutters that sprawls along the foot of a heavily quarried mountain range. We moved to a place called Nove Starine, an island patch of pine forest with huge magnificent stone carvings, wild-growing jasmine, passion fruit, blackberry and cherry tomato masses, and of course our host Ivan Tokic. Ivan is a self-proclaimed eccentric and former regional marble-carving celebrity turned off-the-grid/landfill squatter turned community-driven good energy generator and sustainability advocate. He's a man full of ambition and knowledge and Nove Starine is his biggest effort yet. Ivan works everyday to transform the land into "a multifunctional art park where travelers from around the world can gather for art projects, community events, agriculture and sustainability education, language practice and cultural exchange." It is a place that makes all things grow. daily life in solinOf course, we worked tooBefore & After: views of the cleaned squash patch and new trellis for zucchini and gourds to hang from. On the hunt for soothing watersAfter days of mosquito attacks, ineffective deet applications, dirty work and camping we were reeeeaaaally hoping for a chance to shower. There is an outdoor shower at Nove Starine that consists of a wall on three sides made of dead stacked christmas trees with forest on the fourth side (really quite beautiful). The shower requires water to be dragged up the hill and poured into a bucket (for water pressure). While we were there, however the site was pretty low on water and besides, with all the bug welts coating my body, I wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought of taking my clothes off in a pile of dead pine - seems like a foolish self-sacrifice to the mosquitos. So Nate and I started brainstorming how we could find waters to soothe our bodies before we cracked under the stress of dirt and itchiness. First trying (unsuccessfully) to navigate through the industrial coast of Solin to reach the sea, then getting a tour guide to help us there the next day, then remembering (brilliantly!?) that the public beaches in Split have showers (fresh water!!!!) built into the boardwalks and setting forth on a day of public bus rides and city walks to find a way to bathe. :) Solin walk-through + Volunteer Adventure Video!While in a wander through the zigzag stone streets of Diocletian's Palace, we came upon an opportunely located quintet of singers of traditional Dalmatian music - so I made a little video to collage of random views of the city of Split to their lovely song. The footage begins up on Marjan Hill, near the Jewish cemetery with pines saturated with cicadas, within Diocletian's Palace on the streets and up in the Bell Tower of Cathedral Sv. Duje, and in the Adriatic Sea itself...getting a little too hyper at the end ;) Enjoy! |
AuthorAn Upstate New York-grown, art history + Italian major turned organic farm volunteer turned Home Health Aide turned Landscape Architecture Grad student currently adventuring about the globe and taking far too many photos for one travel blog to handle. Archives
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