Switzerland and Beyond

Bern, Switzerland:
Good old Felix, a friend ever since we met while hiking in Zion National Park back in ’89, met me at the train station. He lives a few stops away from the center, in a nice roomy flat. I dumped my backpack in the guestroom and we caught up on my Dubai years and his recent travels to the USA (Felix has been to the States 32 times!). Bern is a lovely city, particularly the old town with the river flowing in a loop three quarters around it. Not that muddy brown of the Missouri or, frankly, most other rivers, but a clean, refreshing aqua. I love that glacial water. The highlight of the Bern stay, though, was a mountain hike.

Felix belongs to a hiking club, which consists for the most part of an over-40 crowd. Tough, fit folks, though. One morning, at the main train station, Felix and I met up with his colleague, a woman in her 50’s and the woman’s sister. The train out to the meeting point glided silently along its path through villages, a low range of mountains in view the entire route. At the actual meeting point, some town in a huge valley, the rest of the group was waiting—numbering about 20 people. Two by two, we went by ski-lift towards the top of one of the low mountains. By the time we got to the top, the clouds on this very cloudy day were beneath us. The sun made an appearance every now and then as we got started on our walk.

What can I say? The trek was demanding (of my energy levels) but gorgeous. For the most part, we hiked through forest, up and down, down and up. Every now and then a great vista spread before us of the valley and its villages far below. After an hour and a half, right on schedule, the group stopped at a picnic table and brought out goodies: sandwiches, olives, WINE, and a rather large slab of cheese. Felix, beloved by the group for lugging it along, cut off thick slices for us to eat. The weather was chilly so most of us threw on jackets while we ate the ‘snack’. Afterwards, the Swiss dutifully packed away all their rubbish—and we continued up, up, up.

The top, when we arrived, was just a couple hundred yards of wild grasses, flowers and sloping ground. At the very tip-top was a huge cross. I commented to one of Felix’s friends that there were likely angels flying this high up. She laughed. The woman had traveled to the states a couple of times and was quite happy chatting in English. At any rate, we made our descent, following a pathway that took us through more woods until, after another half hour or so, we reached a level area where there sat—surprise—a café/restaurant and some outbuildings. “Here, we’ll eat our picnic lunch,” Felix announced. I glanced at the gathering dark clouds, shivered with cold, and wondered about that. By the time we got to the restaurant itself, the sky opened sent some sprinkles our way in time to ruin the picnic. One of the die-hard picnickers suggested that we brace ourselves against the side of the restaurant and eat, but Felix’s colleague thankfully had the sense to suggest venturing indoors. We did so.

A heavy-set waitress was kind enough to allow us to eat our picnic lunch in her restaurant, provided we agree to buy some hot soup, which on a day like this was no trouble at all. She even guided us to a private room where a big table allowed all twenty of us to sit together. Beers were ordered, soup was ordered, sandwiches and other items to feast upon were brought out from bags. I had my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which got some stares. When I showed it to Felix and his colleague, they made faces. Most Europeans cannot get their heads around the concept of mixing jam with peanut butter. It would get the same reaction in the US if I were to suggest a peanut butter, banana and mayonnaise sandwich (which in reality mom used to eat). Anyway, the lunch went well. The big pot of hot chicken soup went down well with the crowd, and a bit more beer was consumed. The oldest in the group was a thin but hardy man who looked to be in his 60’s or 70’s. He’d had a couple beers by the time we ventured out of the restaurant into clear weather. Tough old bird. Led the pack as we descended down a road and found our way onto another path. “I thought that was the end of the hike,” I said to Felix. We’d hiked three hours up until the café. “Goodness, no,” Felix replied. “We have maybe three more hours to get down.” I groaned, thinking about my blisters. But the weather was clearing up and the forest was alive and green, something I’d not had much of in brown, sandy Dubai. So life was good.

The next ‘event’ during my stay in Bern was a fondue dinner. A couple nights after the hike, Felix took me over to his friend Manfred’s flat. Manfred was in his 30’s, one of those gregarious types who enjoys drinking and telling jokes. He worked at the post office with Felix, actually. Another guy, Ted, was also there along with Manfred’s live-in girlfriend, but she soon announced her departure for the gym. Out on a balcony overlooking the ‘yard’ of the building—an open area with a few tall, grand oaks and a view of the mountains beyond Bern—we sat around a plastic table and chatted while Manfred prepared the fondue. After a short wait, out came a bowl of bubbling yellow cheese and chunks of white bread. Manfred fetched a few bottles of beer, some mineral water and a couple diet cokes, and we feasted. I watched Felix skewer a bite-size piece of bread onto what looked like a giant toothpick about eight inches long and twirl the bread in the cheese. He managed to scoop up two pieces of garlic as well. The rest of us joined in.

The evening consisted of travel stories, drinking (especially for Ted and Manfred), commenting with appreciative tones on the gathering dusk, a pink sky as the sun set, and with darkness, the jokes. Ted and Manfred had a seemingly endless supply of jokes (predictably ribald), and what impressed me was their near-perfect English. Of course in order to work in the post office in Switzerland, one must speak at least three, if not four, languages, so Manfred’s English was great. I wouldn’t be able to tell the “why did the chicken cross the road?” joke in another language. I can’t even tell jokes in English, come to think of it. After Manfred and Ted had alternately told something like a dozen jokes each, I ventured with the one I could remember; I won’t repeat it here, but it usually gets a chuckle at best. At its closure, Ted smiled and Manfred laughed, but only because he’s had so many drinks that anything would have earned a laugh. Manfred’s girlfriend got back from her gym and joined us on the balcony. Noting that her dear one was getting a little loud for the lateness of the evening, she kept shushing him, which worked for a couple of minutes or so. Even Felix whispered a warning about neighbors sleeping. After that, Manfred quieted a bit. By 11pm or so, Felix, Ted and I left the party. Ted zoomed off half drunk on his motorbike and Felix and I walked back to his flat through the dark but utterly charming Swiss neighborhood.



VENICE



I took a day train to Venice, thankful for the brief stop in Milan Italy, a city at which I’d had to visit several times during my Dubai years because Alitalia rather enforced the visit in order to make connections to the States. I’d wanted to visit the train station again, always having liked its odd ambience: a mix of gothic, grime and a breezy openness. The platforms and waiting area had always been abuzz with travelers, kiosks selling foods, perfumes, magazines, you name it. Further into the station had been a dimly-lit passageway with ceilings and windows that reminded me of a cathedral interior. Thus, I’d been looking forward to seeing it again. BUT, wouldn’t you know, the Milanese had refurbished the place since my last visit. Now there were ramps and painted walls. I was disappointed but looked forward to Venice.
The city is gorgeous, no matter what anyone says (actually, everyone agrees on that although people disagree on the cleanliness and smell) Pictures will describe the city better than any writer, so I’ll not bother here. I did get upset lugging my heavy backpack up and down the grand canal looking for the hostel. The fools hadn’t had the foresight to mention on their website that the door faces away from the Grand Canal, thus making it difficult to find, and of course asking an Italian policeman or hotelier or kiosk worker is a useless endeavor, sure to invoke a shrug or some gobbledygook in Italian. A very unhelpful people, the bloody Italians. Anyway, I finally found the place, and a very helpful young woman behind the desk said, “Si, now I am afraid you must walk to the place where your room is; the rooms are not all here.” I felt myself getting slightly agitated but glanced down at the map she produced. “Our other place is here,” and she drew a quick circle around a point that I knew was back on the other side of the Grand Canal. “It’s only maybe fifteen minutes.” I sighed. Thankfully, she gave explicit directions about how many little bridges to cross. So off I went.
The walk along the Grand Canal is magical, especially at dusk. I stopped to rest and take in the view from the bridge that crosses the Grand Canal near the train station. Gondoliers, a polizia motorboat, some private craft and a public floating bus plied up and down the canal, seemingly in each other’s way. I hated to walk on, but I wanted to get situated before dark. The main route took me through the more touristy areas but all the venerable old buildings were alive with customers. Signs announced cheap spaghetti, tours, knick knacks, but none of the gross commercialism could dampen the joy of being in Venice. I found the ‘other location’ down one narrow street that dead-ended to a small canal. Opening the monstrously large metal door, I walked panting up two flights of stairs, opened another door, another, and found the room that the “red” key would open. Inside were seven beds, but no one was about, and only three of the beds had backpacks and gear strewn on them. I stowed my backpack under the bed, put my wallet and money pouch into deep pockets, and set out. My first stop was the only supermarket I found in Venice during my stay, a Billa (tiny stores found throughout Europe). Tiny things far from the American concept of a supermarket, Billa nevertheless offered me some bread, diet Coke, and a banana. I paid and wandered down some empty-looking alleyway that dead-ended to a canal (there are loads of these), I sat on the top stair of a set of steps that descended into greenish water. On the other side of the canal were old faded buildings, windows open, and clothes hanging out to dry. Music emanated from one of them, and in peace I ate my dinner.
The next day I just wandered, which is pretty much what one does in Venice: soak in the atmosphere of this city of watery streets. Well, I also spend an hour or two grading papers online from the hostel, but for the most part I was free on this sunshiny day. In one church, I saw an art showing. A Muslim woman, Moroccan I believe, had painted some abstracts of ‘modern female life’. But like most modern art, it made me yawn, and I more appreciated the chance to sit in a corner and enjoy the cool breeze.
I also made it through a maze of streets and alleyways to San Marcos Square, shown in dozens of movies. I’d been here in 1979, in the winter, when the square was under several inches of water (a regular occurrence). On this day, no fewer than a million people crowded about gawking at the amazing church, standing in queues, gulping from bottles of mineral water, and snapping pics (mostly of each other). I knew immediately that I would depart. Just beyond the square one comes to the sea, where you can walk along the cornice, the seawall, and gaze out past the sailboats and ‘bus stops along the wharf to some islands, on which sit villas and homes for the rich. With the sea on my right, and grand 17th and 18th century buildings to my left, I walked. This was Venice.

Train to Belgrade

My plan was to take the night train from Venice to Belgrade, and after a day in Belgrade, to catch another night train to Thessaloniki Greece. It meant spending two nights on trains, but I would save some money and have days to wander. At the Venice train station, I watched the last of the light ebb away behind the Grand Canal and then entered the train station. I found the platform and sat on a bench. The only other westerner was a young woman, a bit on the heavy side and with blond hair. She asked me if I were going to Serbia, and we started chatting about Venice, travels, etc. The girl’s name was Lori and she hailed from Vancouver Canada. Both of us wondered if the Serbian border cops would still be upset with America’s bombing of Belgrade ten years earlier. How long does it take to get over your country being bombed? There was a 50-something man in a uniform standing near the train (itself dark and empty inside) so I asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head and said some words that sounded rather apologetic. “Russian?” I tried, to no avail, but when he asked “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” my heart was thankful yet again for the German I’d studied. “Ja,” and I asked him if Serbia was safe for Americans. It was likely a dumb question, of course, but it never hurts to ask. He launched into a short lecture explaining how safe it was, how people were people, governments had their problems, etc. etc. and he smiled. I knew it would be okay.
At 11pm or so, Lori and I boarded and found our six-seat cabin. By the time the train chugged out of Venice, not many others had boarded. The entire car only had about a dozen people sitting in cabins. We wound up sharing with a young Serbian guy in his twenties and a pretty Serbian girl. Each of us had one berth on which to sleep, but after we’d gotten under way, “Mark” (English version of the Serb name) asked the conductor if he and I could sleep in the next compartment since there were so many empty places. “Sure,” the guy replied. It didn’t bother him where we slept, apparently. Some conductors are pretty fussy about staying where you’re assigned. We made up our beds with the sheets and pillows that the conductor handed us. After chatting for awhile (Mark mentioned that he was half Serbian and half Croatian), we climbed into our bunks and slept.
The next morning, with yet a couple of hours before reaching Belgrade, Mark and I sat in the next cabin with the Serbian girl. Lori had disembarked during the night when the train had stopped in Croatia. So it was the three of us. The girl, who spoke only broken English, would get a call on her cell phone every twenty minutes or so. Mark spoke to her in Serbian and explained to me that her sister had just had a baby in their hometown and there was some problem with the health of the baby. We said a few words of sympathy and she nodded and smiled. Breakfast for all of us was the almost the same: bread, water, apples.

BELGRADE
Not much to report. I spent one day here. The city is pleasanter than I thought it would be. While the streets and buildings are a bit ‘tired’ and lacking any grandeur whatsoever, there’s a wide pedestrian-only street lined with nice shops and trees. The people surprised me the most. I’d been here in the 80’s when everything was much grimmer—life under Titov and Communism had meant dull, worn clothing and a lack of vim and vigor. Of course life changed dramatically in the 1990’s for all of Eastern Europe, and now I found a well-dressed citizenry, particularly the women. They were much more chicly garbed than Americans. No sweat pants here; short dresses or slacks or denim shorts, pretty faces, smiles on faces. Couples walked hand in hand, families were out and about and the shops were filled. The buildings hadn’t changed much, but the people seemed to be doing well. I was still unhappy with Serbs for their attempts to annihilate Bosnians and then Kosovars.
I made my way up the pedestrian street to a little park. The weather couldn’t have been better: it was sunny and about 70 Fahrenheit. I drank a diet coke, people-watched, and moved on to a fortress that was open free to everyone. Inside was more ‘park’, some old walls, a few structures not open to the public apparently. No one seemed to mind. At a tennis court set aside a centuries-old wall, two men swatted the ball back and forth while a handful of us watched. Then, at an overlook point, I gazed at the Danube River far below, and forest, and villas dotting the hillside across the river and below us. Teens sat here and there on a low wall talking energetically or talking on a cell phone. After a rest, I strolled back to town and treated myself to a Big Mac (the place was packed). After a visit to an Internet Café, I spent another couple hours wandering before returning to the train station.
The train to Thessaloniki, Greece would be an overnighter—and I’d only booked a seat in one of those cute little compartments. The Belgrade station at night is quite different from its daytime character. Now, the place was in shadows, reminding me of the old Soviet times. The train itself was just sitting on the tracks, lifeless, dark and spooky. A few shadows climbed at different cars into the train. I was hoping to be alone in a compartment; that way, I could stretch out along 3 seats and sleep. For awhile, I thought I’d be in luck. As I watched more and more people climb aboard the various cars, and as some of the individual car lights would inexplicably blink on, no one entered my cabin. I kept my fingers crossed for privacy and silence. I had horrible visions of grumpy non-English speaking Serbian men filling the compartment and smoking all night while arguing. But as luck would have it, just a few minutes before pulling out, two men entered my dark compartment. I was sitting next to the window, and thankfully the seat directly across from me was jutting outwards, clearly broken, so at least no one would interfere with my plan to stretch my legs. With a cough, a man in his 40’s but looking rather sweaty and sick, sat in the middle seat; his friend, somewhat older, sat next to the door. By and by we figured out that we both spoke German, the older guy and I, so we chit chatted a bit. They were Macedonians heading back to Skopje. Well, after the train pulled out for the long haul to Thessaloniki, the sick Macedonian began to cough alarmingly regularly—without always covering his mouth. His clothes looked to have been purchased from a Goodwill about to go out of business. His friend leaned his head against the glass of the door window and soon began to snore. In the next cabin, a baby’s cries pierced the night. I was miserable.
Luck was with me. I stepped gingerly over the legs of the snoring Macedonian and headed down to the end of the car past the entire row of filled cabins. The conductor stepped out of his little ‘office’, and I asked him how much it would cost for a couchette in the next car (which I’d earlier noted was mostly empty). “Ten Euros,” he said in a friendly manner, and my heart perked up.
“Sold,” I said. I grabbed my backpack and left the Macedonians to the noise. In my new home in the next car, I happily had the entire cabin to myself. I selected the middle berth to sleep on, and the conductor brought me clean sheets and a pillow. I set myself up and spent the night first looking out the windows at the passing night scene (the occasional village, dark shapes of forestland, the lights of a farmhouse) and then slept.
The train was running late. We should have arrived in Thessaloniki Greece by late morning; however, the train, according to the conductor, was still in Macedonia! We hadn’t even made it to the Greek border yet. Well, I’d pulled the window in my cabin down to allow in the fresh cool wind, and I could alternately nap in my bunk or stand in the corridor looking out the window, so I didn’t really mind. I’d made a reservation via the Internet for a hotel in Thessaloniki, so I was stress free. The countryside was pretty though dusty (as is much of the Balkans). Low hills with some scraggly trees and bushes on them, fields, a narrow river keeping up with the train, that was about it. Very pleasant.

THESSALONIKI, GREECE

Thessaloniki is a city I last visited 20 years ago (gasp! 20??). It’s as different from Athens as New York is from Los Angeles. The city is spread out, partly up a small mountain and partly lining the sea. There’s no beach for most of the city; instead there’s a seawall that’s quite pleasant to walk along, the blue ocean on one side (the plastic bottles, seaweed and assorted garbage is rather unpleasant though) and 7-9 story buildings on the other. The place must have been grand in its day but is exhausted and a bit polluted now. Thankfully, the sea winds flow through the narrow streets that ascend gently upwards and push out any smog, I suspect. But here in Thessaloniki (hey, St. Paul was here chiding and teaching) are Roman ruins, the remains of old walls, towers, and history that makes you feel small and lonely in the world. Well at least it does travelers. The youth walked about on cell phones and dressed chicly, sexily. The women at least. Low-cut blouses seem to be the norm.

The memories I will carry away: taking bus 23 as it wound along backstreets that led upwards towards the crest of the mighty hill that is part of the town. At the top are some residential properties and shops, but on a Sunday not much was happening. A glorious 20-foot Roman wall stretched for a few hundred yards, and an old monastery (not grand in itself) sported a lookout point from which the city lay before you—far down below you, spread out and wonderful. I wandered past dusty little modest wood houses as well as more impressive homes. Little East-European looking cars sat near BMW’s.

In the evening, I sat in a restaurant (mostly empty) with white tablecloths and a glass-covered counter filled with various alien-looking food. Oddly enough, gyros were hard to find and those that existed in the corner kiosks were all pork, which I don’t eat. But here I feasted on fried potatoes, a mound of peas (they were generous with the peas, cheap on potatoes) and greasy but delicious chicken. Not bad after a few days of bread and similarly unhealthy eating. Some old tunes were playing, one of which was an old favorite: The Winds of Change by the Scorpions. I’d listened to that song many times before leaving for Russia back in 1991. After listening to some good old songs, I paid my 6 Euros and returned to my room; I’d splurged on a private room with a little (very little) bathroom, where in the sink I washed some clothes and hung them up to dry. After doing some work, missing folks at home, missing Dubai, and generally missing conversation, I read another chapter of Cadfael and went to sleep.

The 3 people that I did meet and talk to were Vicki, who worked at the Starbucks across the street. We chatted several times when I went in for tea (and work); her English was good and she’d done a little traveling around Greece and just was a pleasant sort to chat with. I also met Feona and Tonya, two gals from San Francisco who showed up in the hotel lobby late one evening looking exhausted. They wound up getting a room and the next day, the three of us caught a city bus for a long and hot ride to the end station, where we caught yet another bus to a village on the outskirts, one that fronted the sea and had a proper beach.
Well, ‘proper’ has different meanings. It was the best beach in Thessalonika, apparently, but I didn’t think much of it. The tacky shops and bars lining the beach were tourist rip-offs, and the sand was littered with cigarette butts (I think Greek babies must come out with a cigggie between their little pink lips). Compared to Dubai, it was abysmal, and I impatiently wondered why I’d endured the bus ride to experience ice-cold water and an unpleasant beach. Still, it was restful to lie in a lounge chair and watch the Greeks soak up sun and splash in icy water. Tonya and Feona had just come north from the Greek Isles and were beach lovers. They wound up staying long after I took another series of hot and dusty buses back to the hotel. For the evening, I wandered back down along the seawall and walked the half a kilometer or so to where there’s an old Roman tower (it’s called the White Tower if you want to Google it) and small plaza, along which Greek families and couples amble in the breeze. Very pleasant. Vendors hawk roasted corn on the cob and other goodies, couples embrace, children chatter, teens show off; in short, the realities and wonders of life are on full display.

My last evening in Thessaloniki. In a lonely state, I wandered the crowded streets. The old tired buildings are both attractive and depressing. They’re like the over-30 crowd here: worn out from life and time. These 7-9 story structures have some dusty glory attached to them, having seen a lot. As the sun hid behind the buildings, I wound up in a plaza in which is located a glorious domed church; it reminded me of a mosque by design, but that’s much of the Eastern Orthodox church style. Inside were paintings, icons, candles, incense, everything in a dim light with some rays of a descending sun passing through the open door and stretching into the entryway of the nave. Two massive chandeliers of gold color (doubtfully gold but who knows) hung from the domed ceiling, the cord coming down from the figure that must be Mary surrounded by angels. If this church had been in Omaha, I thought, the place would have been stripped bare decades ago. I watched a young couple enter (unlike their elders, the youth are trim, fit, sexy, alive), pick up candles and light them by sticking the wick into a burning candle. The man set them into slots and walked over to one of the paintings of what must be a saint. Leaning forward, he almost kissed it. His lips didn’t quite reach the frame, which was likely cheating (but quite healthier). I later saw an old woman’s lips make it all the way to the glass-covered icon. Well, I guess by that age, after wars and the troubles of life in the Balkans, what can a little painting kissing do?

Back at the Atlantis hotel, I checked email one last time and gathered my heavy backpack, said my goodbyes to the young ruffle-haired clerk who had spent ten minutes decrying the Euro and the economy and the general poor state of the city. I walked down the street towards the train station, stopped at a café for a diet coke and stupidly for a piece of bread spread with Nutella. At the station afterwards, I waited for the night train to Sofia.

This train was similar to the one from Belgrade. For reasons of finance, the governments of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania don’t provide soap or toilet paper in the train restrooms. Nor do they spend money on a cleaning service. Grime is rather permanent, I suspect. On the plus side, I had my own cabin again, my own nice berth. Standing in the dark corridor as the train swept along out of Thessaloniki (the Greek government doesn’t indulge in lighting either), I met two Greek Cypriots—a father and his twenty-year-old son—and chatted. The son had lived in the Bronx while attending some business college and married a Greek-American woman, and they all lived happily now in Cyprus, though one brother lived in Sofia, where they were now headed. The father retired into his cabin by 11pm or so, and the son and I chatted on and off while watching the dark shapes of northern Greece go by. The window was pulled down to neck level and it was fun to poke your head out and get a true breath of fresh air.

In the middle of the night, the passport control dudes came aboard for passports. The officer, a rather stern-looking gentleman with a worn uniform, more or less ordered me to get off the train and go to the little station. He took my passport and hurried on to the next car. Well, it’s an EU country, I knew, so there shouldn’t be any worries. I climbed down he steps off the train and crossed a set of tracks to the border-control station. In one room, two or three guys watched monitors (or possibly a TV). In another office, a young uniformed agent in his early thirties jotted something onto paperwork. “Do you know when we get our passports back?” I asked. He replied in English, and in a very friendly tone, that his colleague would simply bring them here to get stamped. Another American, a kid of about nineteen and looking very sleepy, came in as well. After a few minutes, the young friendly border agent said, “Where is he?” and frowned. He ran off to hurry his colleague along. Soon, he was back with our passports, did the scan and stamp, and handed them back. “Have a nice trip,’ he said, and we boarded the train.


SOFIA

I visited Sofia Bulgaria on two other occasions and have always liked the city. In 1990, just as communism was coming to a close (protesters trying to burn down Communist Party Headquarters and lots of demonstrations brought about a swift end as Eastern Europe fell), I’d witnessed with my friend Stoyan a massive 100,000 person demonstration on a main square. At the time, the streets of Sofia were potholed, the buildings needed painting, the people were dressed poorly, and shops were half empty. I wasn’t too surprised to find things had changed dramatically. During my time in Sofia, I delighted that the streets were fixed, the buildings painted, the people well dressed and full shops. Life was looking better. I caught tram 18 from the main station and took it took it several stops to “Ploshads Makedonia”, where the hostel I’d booked at was situated.

The hostel is called Hostel Mostel. The guy that mostly ran the front desk was both energetic and extremely friendly. All about the big common room (furnished with sofas and big plush pillows on the floor) young and old backpackers chatted or surfed on laptops. Still, there was no feeling of overcrowding at all. The guy checked me in and led me up an outside wooden staircase to the second floor balcony. There were several rooms along here, and he gave me the electronic pass key to open the door. Inside were several bunk beds. I stored my valuables in a free locker and walked back downstairs. “Free breakfast,” the guy said, “and in the evening free spaghetti and beer! Free Wifi anytime you want.” This was wonderful! Since I hadn’t eaten since the night before, I helped myself to bread, hot tea, granola and yogurt, sitting at a table with a few others, one being Annie. She was from Seattle and was traveling on and off with some friends who split up occasionally to do their own thing. This morning she was expecting an Israeli friend back from Serbia, and as we chatted, a rotund man in his 40’s plunked down beside me. “I’m Meeshael,” he said, introducing himself. From Southern France, he said. By the time I’d cleaned my plate and refilled my hot tea, a youthful Israeli man came up to Annie and gave her a hug. “Benjamin”, she cried, ushering to sit with us. He had both a nice genuine smile and long locks of black hair. I couldn’t picture him as a soldier, though. More like the peacenik type.

Well, that’s what’s great about hostels. People back home wonder why I don’t stay in a hotel or pension. Why a hostel, they ask, as in a tone suggesting a place where homeless people and drug addicts might venture. But hostels internationally are a great thing. As one 61-year-old woman later described it, when you stay in a hotel, you’re alone. It’s boring. In a hostel, you meet people, usually interesting people, and these kids (and older travelers too) are hardly the unkempt vagabonds of the 60’s and 70’s. These 21st Century travelers wear decent name brand clothes, carry cell phones and/or laptops, and demand more services of a hostel, hence the free Wifi, breakfast and beer that so many offer.

After breakfast I called an old Dubai acquaintance named Radi. He’d lived and worked as a waiter in Dubai from about 2001-2005 or something like that. I’d drop in to the place where he worked and we’d chatted frequently and exchanged emails. I used Skype to call his house number, and he said we’d meet the next morning in front of the Hilton Hotel (main landmark near the ex Lenin Square, the place of the before-mentioned demonstrations.


I spent the late morning exploring some old familiar roads in Sofia—going with Annie, Benjamin and Michael the Frenchman. One little ‘market’ was a collection of booths where quiet hawkers (sitting in lawn chairs) sold icons, knick knacks, pennants, and old Soviet military items: knives, brass knuckles, ammunition, etc. Matroshka dolls were on most tables, and I allowed myself a tiny gift: a kitchen door magnet of the map of Bulgaria. Annie paused over each table perusing the items, so I wandered off to a nearby church, the magnificent cathedral of St. Sophia. I love orthodox churches. Sophia was high domed, dimly-lit with wall murals of saints and holy men, chandeliers the size of a VW bug, intricate carvings and the scent of incense. I whispered some prayers and walked back to rejoin my new buddies.

IN the afternoon, we all split up. I wanted to explore a bit on my own, revisit the square where the demonstrations of 1990 had occurred. After marveling at how clean everything was and how full the shops were, I decided it was lunchtime. I stopped in one café filled with locals and at the buffet counter pointed at the potatoes and chicken—and cola light. The place was ordinary, a regular greasy spoon, but the food was delicious and pretty cheap. It gave me the strength to wander on. In much need of a haircut, I tracked down a salon where a mere kid invited me to sit in the chair; he didn’t speak much English but I understood that he was asking how I wanted my hair cut. Since his looked pretty decent, I just pointed and said, “Like yours.” I have to give the kid credit, he did a bang-up job. Walking out, I felt the cool breeze on my scalp and was glad I’d gotten rid of my mop. Eventually I made it back to Hostel Mostel, where I took a nap in my bunk in an otherwise lifeless room, though open backpacks and clothes strewn about bunks hinted at life to come. I was awoken from my nap by a guy coming in. He was medium height, in his late twenties I guessed, with short and very curly brown hair. As one does, we said hi and started chatting about all the usual stuff. His name was Alexi, a French Canadian from near Montreal. Since it would shortly be dinner, we walked downstairs. I worked a bit on my laptop and he surfed at the PC. After awhile, the hostel dude walked back to a kitchenette and threw some spaghetti noodles into a huge pot. “Soon,” he said with a grin to several of us.

The spaghetti was good, as was the free beer, of which I allowed myself a glass. I sat with Alexi and two Swedish girls barely twenty, I guessed. One was quite pretty with blond hair—the stereotypical Swedish girl. Fine English, too. I asked her if she’d studied American or British English (her accent was American). “British English in school,” she said, “But we always watch American movies and TV, so we get the accent.”

The next morning at breakfast, Alexi and I sat with Michael the French guy, Annie, Benjamin and a newcomer who introduced himself as Dominick, an Englishman in his late twenties who lived in Milan. “Computer work allows me to live in Italy,” he said. He mentioned something about his girlfriend and moving to Italy and her kid and something else, but I couldn’t comprehend it all because of his accent and his being a soft spoken person. Tall and thinly built, he seemed to be a quiet, decent bloke, as the Brits say. I left to get to the Hilton by ten, and wandered a street market filled with bookstalls for awhile. Then, at the Hilton, I saw Radi standing in the parking lot with a grin on his face. We embraced and he led me across the street to an outdoor café. “Sorry I don’t have more time,” he said as we sat at a table. All around us people bustled hither and thither. “I got a new job contract just yesterday and am leaving for Germany to work on a river boat.” I felt sorry for his bride of only two years or so. Likely he wouldn’t get home again for at least a year. After leaving Dubai, he said, he’d worked on a cruise ship that plied the Atlantic, cruised to South America and the Caribbean, and even western European ports. Radi had seen a lot in two years. “But I quit a couple years ago. I saw a murder.” And he went on to tell a gruesome story about being in the mess hall for employees and watching a Filipino man hammer the brains out of a fellow Filipino worker. “A British girl that saw it went insane,” Radi said with a shake of his head. “I couldn’t work there anymore, so I came home and got married.” We talked and talked until he had to go do more paperwork. In two days, he’d leave Bulgaria, and I figured he’d need some time with his family.

IN the afternoon, I walked to an old familiar place called NDK. NDK is just a tram stop in front of the rather darkly imposing and old Soviet-style Palace of Culture. Pretty much the size of a small stadium, the place looked dark and foreboding in 1990. It hadn’t changed much. But beyond NKD is a bridge that goes into the newer part of town. On the bridge were photographs from the `1990s, displaying the demonstrations, even some fires set by protesters, and the victories and cheering throngs from the time when the Commies fell. I reminisced about my visit at the time and walked on over the bridge (passing a big new McDonalds) to, of all places, a mall. The interior caused me to gasp. It could have been in an American city judging by the way shoppers were dressed and by the stores. I found a Costa Coffee shop and sat reading the newspaper and sipping Latte. Walking out later, I ruminated on the differences in malls in my life. Take Westroads mall in Omaha, for example. That was quite comparable to what I was seeing now in Sofia. Both were far better than the run-down new mall in Southampton England, but of course substandard in comparison with the opulent malls of Dubai.




In the evening, I walked with Alexi and Dominick to what is known in Sofia as the Russian Church. It’s the prettiest tiny domed church, unmistakably Russian. We snapped pics, commented on its beauty , and walked further up a wide boulevard. Neoclassical buildings on either side reminded me a little of the grandeur of St. Petersburg. We found ourselves in front of St. Sophia, which I’d seen the day before, but with the evening light, a picture would be brilliant; unfortunately, as we walked up a sloping street towards the church and it’s large parking area, one of those giant luxury tour buses pulled up alongside. “No, go away,” cried Alexi, and we bemoaned tours and buses in general. The church was closed, so we agreed to return in the morning to venture inside; for now, we snapped what pics we could of the exterior. The only embarrassing moment for me was when a group of American men, looking to be in their 50’s, came up to ask for recommendations to a decent but cheap café. Ordinarily, nothing wrong in that, of course, but they looked and spoke precisely like Texas good-old boys (which they were) firmly out of their element. Probably on some tour. “So, like where’s the closest joint?” one asked Alexi, but none of us could remember the location of the cafes we’d eaten in. “Just point us in the right direction,” the one man said with a laugh. “Hell, we’re F______ing Americans; we have a natural homing instinct.” Well, what more can you say?

On the way back, we stopped in a park as the sun’s last rays were extinguished. Kids on bikes dared injury on one of those half-circle metal ramp thingies. You know, where they go down one side and up the other like lightning, twisting and turning. One kid was good, though. He did a complete turn, the bike upside down for an instant in midair. At one mysterious pyramid shaped monument about 20 feet high, we wondered aloud about its significance. Each white stone had carved on it a name, in Cyrillic of course. Alexi, always with an eye for the ladies, spotted two lovely young creatures sitting on a bench nearby. Since I knew some Russian, I went over and asked about the monument. Both of the girls smiled charmingly but replied in English, “Not sure, maybe war,” and the one pointed to the side of monument that we couldn’t see. Wandering over, sure enough, I saw the years (which I have now forgotten) from the late nineteenth century, the time when Bulgaria battled the Turks for independence. Alexi wanted to stay and chat with the girls, but it was practically dark, so we departed.

The next morning after breakfast, Alexi wanted to walk the two departing Swedish girls to the train station. I didn’t care to go until I learned they were walking by way of the “Lady’s Market.” Intrigued, I went along. The market was, when we arrived twenty minutes later, in a more run-down area. The mostly residential area’s apartment buildings needed painting and were chipped. The clothing was a bit more downcast. The faces not so animated. IT wasn’t dangerous or anything; indeed, the market was lively, filled with vegetable and fruit stalls. Brigitta bought a paper bag filled with ripe red cherries. Other stalls displayed clothing (including a surprising amount of women’s undergarments—hence the name, I suppose) and household goods. If you needed a broom or a mop or a hammer, this was the place to shop.
Somehow, while chatting and peaking at the interior of a tiny white church, and watching old men play chess and bums sit on benches, we lost the girls. No biggie, so we returned to the hostel, found Dominick, and all returned to see the vast interior of St. Sophia. There were no tour buses in front though two policeman on the edge of the parking lot called something out to us. I thought they were forbidding us to go towards the church and asked (in Russian) if it was allowed to see the inside. One young cop chuckled and said in broken English, “No, is okay, just not this way because barricade for cars..please to go around.”

Inside the church, more incense, icons and chandeliers. One mystery was in regards to the paintings, murals and icons we’d seen of priests throughout the Balkan lands. Inexorably, a priest would have a raised hand (as if giving the Vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ salute) –but with fingers curiously intertwined, crossed, or forming what looked like a tiny “okay” sign. We asked an old woman working a gift booth, and she answered in a stream of Russian. We politely said “Spasiba” and wandered away.

Veliko Tarnovo

I arrived in this charming town by bus (one of the nice air-conditioned jumbos) from Sofia in the afternoon. I’d pre-booked the Hostel Mostel from Sofia’s sister branch so had a place to stay. I knew it wasn’t terribly far to the hostel and there is only one main street here, but I nevertheless called the phone number I had on the brochure (from the lobby of a 3-star hotel), and a guy said, “Sure, we can pick you up, just wait about ten minutes, Stan will be there…” and the phone went dead. I guess 20 cents doesn’t get you much talk-time here in Bulgaria.

I stood with my backpack out front of the hotel. The weather was great, perhaps a bit on the warm side, but there was some shade, and the square was pretty. Within minutes, a man with a weathered but friendly face appeared and with a smile, ushered me towards his waiting car. He said, “I am Stan,” and after I threw my backpack in the trunk of his car, he drove along the main street into the old part of town, pointing out various sites (best café, the supermarket, the fortress on the hill) in broken English. I tried some Russian on him, and he smiled broadly, and thereafter mixed the languages.

About the town: Veliko Tarnovo was the capital of Bulgaria for many centuries, until just a hundred years ago or so. It’s a small town, really, but what makes it a great place to travel to is the beauty of it. The town is layered across a series of low mountains (or high green-covered hills, depending on your point of view). The old Balkan architecture is just another reason to like the town. From various vantage points from the town’s main street, you can look across small valleys, over red-tiled roofs, and wonder how on earth the inhabitants navigate the twisting up and down roads in the winter.

About Hostel Mostel: wonderful! Stan introduced me to a New Zealander named Andy, who is more or less based here now. He’s renovating some property he bought, I believe. Although the hostel has 3 large rooms with multiple bunkbeds in each room, there were only a dozen or so backpackers at the present time, so Andy and I shared one entire room. Stan proudly pointed out the dining area, a cute room with four tables and a counter from which you could help yourself to coffee, tea or cocoa anytime of the day or night. “In the evening,” he said, “Free dinner at 7:30, spaghetti. And in morning time, free breakfast.” Which is pretty much what I’d experienced in Sofia. He took me out back to a sitting area overlooking a garden, and then back to show off the ultra-clean bathrooms and showers. I was impressed! There was even free wireless. All this for 11 Euros a night (around $15).

After an amble about town (I hate to overuse the word ‘charming’, but the adjective works wonders), I stopped in at the restaurant Stan had recommended. It was clean and offered good home-cooked foods (Stan had said it was the only place in town where he dined). For about four bucks, I had a mini-casserole: sliced potatoes baked with cheese and egg. I had time to peruse my somewhat battered copy of the Herald Tribune and finish that off before walking back to the hostel for a rest. This is a town in which to embrace the peace. The first highlight of the evening was supper. In the dining room, we backpackers included a young English kid who was all skin and bones and spoke in that hard-to-understand (for me) Manchester accent, Andy, two California kids taking a year off from university (both into extreme sports; I told them that I was into coffee shops), and a couple from Australia named Judy and Tom. Judy was a kick. At 61, she’d traveled the world—and I mean just about everywhere. Back in the 70’s she’d done the Europe—India route overland, and has done all the old trails that make a backpacker green with envy. After having sold her two successful travel agencies, she traveled for something like 8 months out of the year.

After dinner, folks were either hooked up to their laptops, sitting on massive comfy pillows in the big common room or reading books, chatting. Suddenly, Stan entered and told us that we should run up the street and see the sound and light show over the fortress. The California couple and I dashed off, cameras in hand. Up a street, up a zigzagging staircase, down another road—and we came out through some trees to see the hilltop fortress, bathed in a red glow. Not only the fortress, itself perched on a hill, but the old wall lower on the hill and two towers, some outbuildings. This fortress had defended the Bulgarian nation for 1,000 years. We watched amazed as lasers shot out of the hillsides and bright flashes of white exploded here and there along the hill. The blood-red turned to blue, then to white. In the background, seemingly from the air, came the voices of angels accompanied by a fine symphony. Taped of course but nevertheless music to stir the soul. Later, Andy told us that tourists had to pay a good sum of their dollars and Euros to witness the show, but of course we and a few townspeople watched from just outside the fortress happily enough.

Later, in the back garden, I sat awhile with the English kid. He’d traveled to America, he said, having seen parts of California and then flying to the east coast. “I wished I’d seen the middle,” he said wistfully after I explained that I was from Omaha. We chatted travel for a good hour, all the while listening to the ‘noise’ emanating from the mountains that we could barely distinguish under a moonless (but star-filled) sky. The hills were alive, but not with the sound of music now; rather, bats, and by the sounds of their nocturnal life, quite a number of them. Eerie but cool.

Breakfast was good: bread, tea, various local jams, slices of cheese, tomato, cucumber, and what looked like lunchmeat. Simple but filling. I drank 3 cups of tea before heading out into the town again. My goal was to check at the supermarket to see if sugar-free Nutella (that crazy but delicious choco-hazelnut spread from Germany) was for sale. I walked down the main street, thinking that in 1990 (my last visit to Bulgaria), Veliko Tarnovo was probably pretty grim in terms of products, food, shops. Sofia had been. Now, shops were filled to the brim, everyone looked happy and well-dressed. There was a market place filled with stalls where hawkers (quiet ones though) sold veggies, flowers, goods. Stall after stall. I found the little supermarket, but no Nutella was to be found. L To escape the afternoon heat (temps were around 85 by late morning), I stopped in at a restaurant to inquire about prices for the evening. A rather rotund but pleasant gentleman showed me his menu, interestingly pointing out to me all the various dishes—unnecessary since the menu was in English. I then chatted for 20 minutes with a young woman (she stood behind an empty bar) about Dubai, which she’d visited. Apparently, her sister has been there for years, having gotten into real estate. “She’s rich, don’t worry about her,” the woman said with a smile. “But I don’t like Dubai,” she said. “Bad weather, and very fake, and no green!”

Lunch was with Andy, the California kids and Dominick. We ambled lazily up a cobblestoned backstreet at Andy’s suggestion. After fifteen or so minutes, that left the task of getting up to the main street. Andy asked a passing local, who pointed to a staircase up ahead. The climb was a bit arduous, and we huffed and puffed our way up between quaint and peeling buildings, probably two or three levels. We agreed as we arrived at the restaurant that we’d built up an appetite. In one corner, we ordered, talked and feasted. A nice big salad was sufficient for me because I couldn’t see eating more pasta.

In the evening, Dominick and I met an older man who was staying at the hostel. In the common room, he introduced himself as Paskel, from the Netherlands. He had short-cropped whitish hair and a lined face. We three wound up going out for a late evening walk through some unfamiliar streets, streets that looked a bit shabbier but for that reason mysterious and spooky in the approaching night. In the distance, the mountains of Veliko Tarnovo loomed large and dark, the sounds of the frogs in distant ponds and rivers grew louder, and some ragamuffin children played kickball in the empty street. This is what kids did before Gameboy, I thought. Anyway, we talked of travels, Paskel sharing his obvious love of Romania. “It’s the most beautiful place,” he said, and promised to jot down a list of must-sees when we returned to Hostel Mostel. On the way back, as we were passing a corner pub/café, Paskel said in his halting English, “This is a great little bar. I like to sit here and watch the people. I would like to sit now,” Dominick agreed, but I wanted a couple pics of night-Veliko. I returned to the hostel, collected my camera, and got some shots of a typical old street, the buildings faintly illuminated by the streetlamps. At the café, I ordered a diet coke from an extremely pretty waitress of about 18. I remember long jet-black long hair, sad eyes, and a genuine smile. It’s funny, but when I asked her if she would take a picture of me and the guys, she obviously thought that I wanted to take a picture of her, and nodded her head shyly. She was probably embarrassed as hell when I mimed her taking a photo of us at the table. As Paskel drank and spoke with feeling about the wonders of Transylvania, Dominick changed his plans to head to Istanbul , opting instead to go up to Romania with me the following morning.

After the usual breakfast, Dom and I said our goodbyes and shook hands with Andy and Paskel; the California kids had departed the afternoon before. Randy nicely drove Dominick and I to the train station. On the way, he pointed out the university where he was studying. The building was half hidden in a forest halfway up a hill. At the station, we said our good-byes to Randy, and piled into the little train that would take us to Romania.



ROMANIA
Bucharest was dark in more ways than one. An overcast sky didn’t lend an aura of joy to this run-down city of broad avenues and mammoth concrete buildings. Dom and I had made reservations at the hostel recommended by the California kids: the Butterfly Villa hostel. Well, their website directions were old, so we couldn’t figure out how to catch Bus #58. The road outside the train station looked like it would be miserable even in bright sunshine; scruffy men (the types that one would expect to hang out near train stations) loitered, packs of dogs wandered and barked, and no one really smiled. I hated the place. Three roads merged into one area in front of the station. Only because Dom had a cell phone could we call the hostel and find out that, ‘oh yes, we have new directions’. By the time we got to the hostel, located on a tree-lined street that had no charm whatsoever, we were sweating and tired. In comparison to Hostel Mostel, Butterfly was nothing more than a dying cocoon. Our room slept eight, and while Andy and I had been the only occupants in Veliko, tonight promised a full crowd, including a loud-mouthed kid going bare-chested and telling a friend about the delights of the women they’d met. “Romanian women!” he sang, “They are wonderful!” In a cramped common room, I tried to do some work on the laptop, a job made harder by the yacking of an overweight Australian woman who wouldn’t leave this guy alone. He obviously wanted to concentrate on HIS laptop, but she was determined to talk travel. I sighed and worked, missing Hostel Mostel and the gang.
Dominick and I ventured out close to dusk in order to rustle up some chow. No free dinner here at Butterfly Villa. We found a good little place, a bit smokier than I would have liked, but I had learned that in this part of the world, everyone (including, probably, babies’ fresh out of the womb) smoked like chimneys. The place had a nice feel about it, comfortable, uncrowded, and with a uniformed waiter who politely took our order. I can’t remember now what I ordered, focusing with pleasure as I was on the tunes of Julio Eglesias. On the way back, not ready to face the hostel, we stopped at a really funky coffee bar for latte. Funky due to the imaginative paint scheme: black and white, oddly shaped figurines, and (sigh) modern abstract art prints.
Interestingly, the bathroom outside our room was big, sporting a large black bathtub. After a much-needed refreshing shower (how we take these for granted back home!), I did some more work and then climbed into my bunk. The usual drunken kids showed up much later, and the kid in the bunk below snored. There’s always one.
The next day, it rained. That wasn’t what worried me. I should explain that Bucharest is rather famous for its packs of homeless dogs. For the most part, they are mere pests, but Annie (from Sofia) had been traveling with an American girl who got bit, so I fretted of course. It would be just my luck to get rabies. So as we walked (the rain hadn’t progressed beyond this stop-and-go drizzle), I was surprised to see my first ‘dog attack’. At a big intersection, a taxi was slowly making a right turn; all the while, two evil-looking mutts were in a frenzy to bite the tire. They practically frothed at the mouth, turned and glared at the citizens of Bucharest, so Dominick and I gave them a wide berth.
I wanted to see the building from which the dictator Ceacescu had, in the late 80’s, spoken to a crowd of thousands, promising free student money and a host of goodies, all in order to keep his sweet position in life. The result, of course, is that the masses soon thereafter pulled him out of his mammoth palatial home, took him and his wife to the back of the building and pumped bullets into their brains. That’s how you handle things in Romania. No bloodless revolution as had occurred in Czechoslovakia. We were walking along on yet another wide boulevard towards “liberty Square”, where the dictator had waved to all the little people (who rose up against him), but what had been drizzle quite suddenly became a shower. Dom and I narrowly ducked into a kiosk/café and waited for several minutes. When there was a letup, we half jogged down a side neighborhood towards a café we could see. In another of Bucharest’s funky bars, we enjoyed a latte and watched until the sky cleared. Dominick said, “I wouldn’t quite mind pushing on this afternoon.” To which I added, “Let’s get out of this city.”
TRANSYLVANIA

The train ride was great: we passed villages and wove through low mountains, mostly standing at the end of one train car meant for bicycles. Here, I pulled down the window and let the fresh air blow into the open car. After a few hours, we arrived in the town of Brasov. What a contrast to Bucharest. Brasov was a pleasant small city, with an old town of course. On one side of the town is a range of low green-covered mountains, but a couple of them angled sharply upwards. We caught bus 51 to the old town, driving through what promised to be a beautiful place to walk and window shop—elegant, obviously refurbished and painted buildings that likely dated back centuries. The bus stopped in a smaller square further up from the old town, but it looked more ‘untouristed’ here, with a couple of kiosks, unpainted buildings and a delightful orthodox church. Quite lovely, the whole thing.
We walked on a cobblestone street to the hostel we’d booked: the Kismet Dao. There, a vampire-like nymph with long black hair greeted us, checked us in, and let us know that our private room was just down the street. She led us there, chatting happily along the way passed old houses behind low walls and gates, from behind which dogs barked. She unlocked one rather massive iron gate and led us up some stairs of a villa and inside. “There are 3 bedrooms here, but so far only you guys have booked.” The ‘hallway’ was open with one of the largest mirrors on the wall I’d seen, probably to give the place a bigger feel (though that was hardly necessary). She waited as we set out packs down gratefully in the room, which was cheery enough with its two beds, a chair and long chest of drawers. “There’s also a kitchen,” she announced, leading us to a kitchen that looked a bit dodgy and dusty. “And here’s the bathroom,” she said, and fortunately it looked pretty clean. She led us back to the hostel. “Of course here you can come anytime you want to use free Wifi and the kitchen upstairs. Come, I will show you.” We climbed some steps and walked into a large kitchen and accompanying balcony whose view took my breath away. Beyond red-tiled roofs were the low mountains; to one side I could see part of the church. I determined to have some breakfast here the next morning.
We walked into town (about twenty minutes) and enjoyed a great afternoon and evening just ambling. It was a little more touristy than I would have liked. By late afternoon there were hundreds walking about spending their money happily at outdoor cafes and inside the many shops. When we got hungry, Dominick and I found a restaurant on a side street. The waiter spoke English and was well dressed; the tables had tablecloths, and oddly, only two of the thirty or more tables had anyone sitting at them. Well, I was hungry so ordered a Greek Salad (which I hadn’t found in Thessaloniki oddly enough) and some vegetable soup. I expected something that might taste like Campbell’s but when I put a spoonful of the soup into my mouth, I swore I had to eat another bowl the next day. Fresh and tasty!
The next morning, I dressed and took my laptop to the hostel kitchen to check email and do a bit of work. Dominick went off to take the cable car up the mountain and do a hike. From the balcony, as I stood sipping some rather abominable coffee (but free), and munching on a sweet roll, I was happy in my soul to see mist covering part of the mountain. How Transylvanian! After doing some work, I wandered down the cobblestone street to the Orthodox Church—and noticed a church graveyard that looked quite appealing. The church’s interior was nothing grand (I’d seen so many recently) but the graveyard, through a tiny gateway and walled in, contained a variety of headstones, some leaning, some big, some small, but all close together (by less than a foot) and all well maintained. Flowers here and there, little pictures of loved ones, icons. What surprised me were the dates on the headstones—they were all relatively recent. One old gentleman had just passed on in 2006. I was disappointed; the church plaque made it clear that the church had been here from the fifteenth century, but clearly the graveyard was new. I didn’t see any stone with a year older than 1952. Yes, I checked many. More interesting than poking about vampire shops for tourists. Back at the hostel, I experienced another of my BIG COINCIDENCES in life: In chatting quite accidentally with this kid of 20 or 21, we discovered that his father had been a colleague of mine in Dubai! How amazing is that? What are the odds that you’d meet someone in the middle of Romania—in just the right place and time?
That night, it rained. Not only that, it thundered and lightning flashed into our room. Dogs howled like werewolves, and the entire Transylvania experience felt complete. Loved it. The next morning, Dominick checked out since he wanted to get an early start to his destination: Serbia. I had tons of work to do so sat in that little kitchen at the main hostel drinking coffee, diet Pepsi, and for awhile, chatting with two older women who were staying at the hostel. I didn’t get their names, but one of them was 67 years old and had been traveling for like a year. Somehow, we got into this conversation about academia. “Ja,” she said, “When I was going to school, you had to study hard, to memorize, to take exams, but now,” she shrugged. She’d been born in Germany, raised in Argentina, and then lived for 30 years in Key West Florida. Quite an interesting character. When I mentioned some of my travel plans, she said, “Ja, I don’t know where I go next, really. I will see. “ She smiled. Here was a person who lived life more fully than I—because I have to plan everything in advance; I admired that spontaneity .
In the evening, I checked out and rode bus 51 back to the train station. The train to Vienna should have arrived from Bucharest on time but a ticket agent behind her window said, “It is an hour late.” The train station was a bit weird, actually. The usual suspect characters loitered, a couple of beggars, a 50-something woman leaning against a concrete staircase who stared at me. On the platform, where at least I could breathe some fresh air, I was looking at the train schedule when a young woman came up and said, “I guess you must be waiting for the train to Budapest?” Well, I knew it was the same train that would continue on to Vienna, so I said, “Yes.”
“I’m worried about the train,” she said. “I sure hope it gets here. I need to get to Budapest and catch a train to Prague.” We sat on a bench and passed the time by talking. Turns out Martika is from Sweden. At 28, she’s an intern in the medical profession and had been hiking in the Carpathian Mountains with several others. “But I only knew one girl before, my friend. The others, we didn’t get along so well. And we were camping…the Romanians told us there would be natural springs up there for water, but there weren’t. We had to melt snow to drink. Man, I hope the train makes it here. I can’t stand the idea of spending another night here.”
The train did come. I had my assigned cabin, and to my chagrin, noted that there were bunks for 6. And unlike in the Balkans, this time I was sharing with 4 others: a Bulgarian guy who resembled a bouncer—he already lay across the top bunk looking down at everything else like a vulture, a 40-something woman who I think was Romanian and 2 young gals in their 20’s. They, too, as I found out in subsequent conversations, were medical students and on their way to a conference in Vienna. And as for Martika, she got a bunk just a few cabins up. We wound up going down to the charming dining car and drinking a beer. She was so relieved at having made it onto a train leaving Romania that she bought me my drink. We hung out there awhile talking about the relative merits of national health care and other topics until we both started yawning. I slept fitfully in my middle bunk through the night, but in the morning in the corridor, as I was stretching and drinking from a bottle of water, I see the skinny British kid from the hostel Mostel in Veliko Tarnovo. We greeted each other happily, got caught up on our travels, and wandered on down the corridor to collect Martika and go off to the restaurant car for coffee.

Not much more to add. They both disembarked in Budapest around noon. I continued on to Vienna, where I had a couple of hours to kill before my train to Hannover. I rode illegally again on the subway down to Stefansplatz and got some shots of the cathedral and the Hapsburg Palace nearby. There were way too many tourists crowding the streets for my liking, and the heat was making me sweat, so I got back to the train station. When I did board my train to Vienna, I was ecstatic to see it was an Austrian train. Since I had the rail pass, I got to ride first class (None of the trains I’d been on in Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria or Romania had had first class!). After the Balkan trains, the experience was almost other-worldly, as if I was too soiled to enter such a haven. The seats were in various configurations in a half-open car. There were a couple of glass-enclosed ‘booths’, and every seat had a wooden table and electric plug in. What joy when the conductor (with that Austrian ultra-politeness) asked if I would like an English newspaper. I sat and read the Financial Times of London, ate some cookies I’d bought at the Billa Supermarket near the West Bahnhof, and glanced out the window at the passing countryside: green, manicured fields, that trim and neat rural Austria that couldn’t exist in wilder places like the Balkans. In the café car, I had a luxurious Latte, and a few hours later, was sorry to have to get off the train, but I’d arrived in Hannover.
Stay tuned for the Scandinavia installment.


· Chatting with son of colleague in Dubai, and others in the hostel. Next day work, chatting with 2 older women (German, Argentina, Key West, traveling). Eve to train station, late train, Martik the Swedish girl, doctor, on board got couchette sharing with 2 Romanian girls (going to medical conference), a polite thug and 40-something Romanian woman. Dusk in Restaurant car with Martika talking. Slept okay but passport control the usual pain. Morning, in corridor saw British chap from Manchester who I’d talked to in Veliko. Funny how you meet up with those you meet here and there.

BACK IN THE WEST: Stark train differences!
As of this writing, I’m sitting in first class on an Austrian train. I just spent two hours in Vienna, where I rode ‘black’, without a ticket, on the subway to visit Stefansplatz. I’d snapped some pics of the cathedral and the interior of a smaller but stunningly gorgeous sanctuary, walked briskly to the Hofsburg Palace for more shots and rode back to the Vienna West Hauptbahnhof after visiting the local Billa Supermarket for water, diet coke, and cookies. This train is positively futuristic in comparison with the Balkan trains I’d been riding. Comfy black leather seating, wooden tables, outlets for computers, even wooden dividers to offer privacy between seat groupings. Sliding glass doors, clean bathrooms with toilets that flush and self-clean. Toilet paper and paper towels! A diner car with freshly cleaned tables, all bright and cheery. Even the passing countryside is manicured between neat manicured Austrian villages.
Compare this to the Romanian or Serbian train. No first class; cabins that hadn’t been vacuumed in weeks, bathrooms that had likely last been cleaned in the 80’s. Forget the flush toilet; there’s usually a drain that spills waste onto tracks. Dented metal paper-towel holders are empty, and the floor isn’t something to discuss before a meal. WHY, I ask, don’t Southern Europeans have more pride? Even Amtrak staff clean the bathrooms (granted at the beginning and end of a journey).