Busy Days

Montenegro is a country I have heard a lot about as it is the motherland of my employers for the past few years. Also I have them to thank for my very basic Serbian vocabulary and even more basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet which has actually helped a bit during our time in the Balkans. We started our time in the country with a stop in the old town of Kotor, but after walking around for a while we realised there wasn't too much to see and from there started a frenzy of bus-hopping. First to Budva then Bar before finally stopping in Ulcinj for a few hours sleep. Next morning we caught the early morning bus across the Albanian border to Schkodra and then another bus to the capital of Tirana, then a few hours later we got on one final bus and 18 hours later we arrived in Athens where we after almost one month of travelling crossed into a new timezone for the first time. It was a a bit of a shame we didn't stay longer in any place, but it feels like Montenegro is best experienced during the warmer summer months when one can enjoy it's nice beaches, so I shall save it for a separate trip some time in the future.

It Mostar Been Love

The word Mostar translates to "Bridge-Keeper, and in it lies the clue to the small town's claim to fame. Because basically all the town has, is it's famous old bridge (Until recently, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grandson started attending the local high-school.) We stayed in a hostel run by Bata, a Bosnian man who happened to live in Stockholm during the war and therefor speaks Swedish, we walked around the old town, but allthough it was very cute and beautifully located under the mountains there isn't all that much to see, apart from the bridge of course. We did manage to find an abandoned bank-tower, which offered great views of the area but after a day and a half we felt we'd seen it all. In Mostar we bumped into Sho, a Singaporean girl who was in the same van from Belgrade to Sarajevo, and she travelled with us to our next destination, across the Croatian border and down the Adriatic Coast to Dubrovnik.
George Bernard Shaw said of the town: "Those who seek paradise on Earth should come to Dubrovnik" and allthough I don't quite agree with old Georgie it seems a whole lot of people do. We stayed one night inside the medieval city walls, which was very nicely paved in shiny marble, and had picturesque white houses with terracotta-rooftops but found it was full of hordes of pensioners from all over the world and decided to move outside of the walls which turned out to be a great plan. Life in the new-city was much more relaxed and calm. However the next day we decided to get moving and as Sho went north, Elias and I crossed the eastern border to Montenegro.

SaraYeahvo

The minibus picked us up bright and early on thursday morning and after an eight hour drive through Serbian countryside and over Bosnian mountains we reached Sarajevo. It's a very interesting city with a fascinating history, in many ways a meeting point between East and West you can pass a Mosque, Synagogue, Catolic and Orthdox church in a short stroll. It's also the place which triggered the start of the First World War, when Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia were assassinated here in 1914. In 1984 they hosted the winter olympics and just 8 years later they were tragically under siege by the Serbs during the Balkan War. For almost 4 years the population were held hostage in their own hometown and wherever you walk today building facades littered with bulletholes tell you what a horrific time this must have been.
We stayed at a hostel located right at the top of a very steep hill and thanks to that we now have buns of steel, we did all the touristy stuff walking around the charming old town, visiting the secret tunnel which during the siege was Sarajevo's only link with the outside world, and sampling the local nightlife. After three days here we decided to move on and jumped on a bus taking us to Mostar, but more about that later...

In garnment related news: People who know me will know I possess a jacket which is made of the softest material imaginable, what most of you don't know is that this fantastic piece of clothing broke in several places over the last few weeks and was on it's deathbed, however after the help from a crafty Bosnian seamstress the jacket now lives to tell the tale, and will hopefully see many more countries to come.

DiSerbia

On Monday night Elias and I said our last farewells to Hungary and took another midnight-train, this time going to the Serbian capital Belgrade. Waking up whilst entering the town one thing that struck me was that for a city whose name translates into "The White City" it really isn't very white at all, but I guess "The Greyish Brown City" doesn't have the same ring to it. However my hopes and expectations for Serbia soon changed as my first conversation was the following:

Taxi Driver: "Taxi?"
Me: "No Thanks"
Taxi Driver (whilst holding both thumbs up): 'OK... Manchester United!!!"
(And no I wasn't wearing anything to give away I was a United fan, apart from the smile on my face suggesting I must live a rather satisfying life.) And from that point things have just continued as (rather surprisingly) Belgrade has proved to have the friendliest and most helpful population of the trip so far.

Walking from the train-station to our aptly named Hostel "Chillton" we were quickly reminded how hard the city had been hit during the war in the 90's. Gaping holes in vacated building loom everywhere and it is hard to understand how some houses look as if they were built yesterday whilst it's neighbour stands an empty wreck right next door.
We spent two full days enjoying all Belgrade had to offer; warm weather when the sun was up, wonderful cheap food and cheap beer, but in a few hours if everything goes to plan we will be getting into a van taking us across the Bosnian border. in order to do that we need to catch some shut-eye though so....

Hungary For More

The midnight-train going anywhere took us Budapest's Keleti Station where Emily's friend Miranda was waiting for us. She took us to her place which was also to be our accommodation for the two following nights. Budapest is one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to, maybe not always as pleasing on the eye as say Prague's oldtown but the mix of grand monuments and buildings with houses which are on the verge of falling apart is so charming. We spent two days walking around both Buda and Pest with yet another former school-friend Adina, and her friend Narmeen, stopping off at the occasional cozy courtyard cafe or bar before taking the train to Adina's current hometown of Debrecen.
Debrecen doesn't have as much to offer as the capital on the cultural front, although to be fair we spent most of our daytime in the apartment and nighttime in different bars and clubs and didn't give it a fair chance, but we did have a very good time. After three days we went back to Budapest and stayed in Narmeen's flat. Sadly Emily had to go back to Sweden whilst Adina and her friend Emy will soon have to go back to Debrecen. Elias and I on the other hand aren't in a hurry to leave but will probably move on to more southern latitudes shortly.

Czech Please

The last night in Berlin was late to say the least, and catching the 10:48 train wasn't the easiest of tasks, but thanks to some "Amazing Race" running and pushing we just managed to jump on in time. Roughly 5 hours later we were in The Czech Republic and it's capital Prague. Finding a hostel wasn't going to be a problem, or so we thought... after a few hours of hunting we managed to find one with an available dorm-room and decided it was good enough. Prague is a truly beautiful city, with loads of historic buildings, cheap beer and tasty food. Our first night wasn't very hectic, we tried some of the regional cuisine, drank a local beer and walked around for as long as our legs could carry us before falling asleep. The second day we got an early start and did some more sightseeing before meeting up with Emily for a few hours and then the three of us "took the midnight-train going anywhere..."

To find out where "anywhere" is, tune in for the next episode...

Don't Mention The...

I arrived on schedule in Berlin at 5 AM on Wednesday morning and proceded to taking the train to my dear friend and former classmate Joanna's appartment in Neukölln. I stayed here with Emily, another dear friend and studybuddy from the past for two days, doing the touristy stuff, which mostly consists of looking at a wall by day followed by drinking German beer by night, before Elias arrived late Thursday evening. The two of us then moved across town to Charlottenburg where we were wonderfully accepted at a friend called Jenny's place. From here we continued on the same travel itenirary of touristing followed by beering, visiting amongst other sites an interesting radar-tower used by the Americans during the Cold War. Berlin was full of surprises, for one everybody speaks German, something I thought was taken care of some 66 years ago. The weather was rather grey most of the time as was a lot of the city to be honest, but it was all brought to life thanks to the friendly and colourful people who inhabit it. I leave you with that cheesy line, and can tell you all that Elias and I somehow managed to catch an early (10:48) train this morning and are currently in Prague, but more about that in the next installment.

On The Road Again

So last trip had a bit of an unexpected and sudden ending as did the life of this blog. To recap the 19 months that have passed since the last post: I flew home from Brasil about a month after the incident, had a few more surgeries in Sweden, got back to work and started planning my next trip. As I am now about to embark on this trip I thought it was a good time to wake some life into the blog as well. The outline and general plan for the trip is for my friend Elias and I to travel from Stockholm, Sweden, down to Cape Town, South Africa, without using the art of flight. The timeframe is not set but reaching South Africa in about 6 months seems like quite a realistic goal. The route is pretty much decided, allthough there could be a few changes along the way, however the plan is to travel through Eastern Europe and then down through Eastern Africa, but more about that when it actually happens.

In less than an hour I get on the vehicle which will start my trip, a bus taking me down to the German capital Berlin over 18 hours, where I have friends waiting and then hopefully Elias will catch up with us 24 hours later.
I have to run now, but I'll write more when I next see a computer...