Kinnie Is Disgusting

SLIMA, MALTA

It is 1:50 in the morning. I need to be up in three and a half hours in order to be sure I make my ferry. (I'm not missing another one.) The hostel is dead silent, save my typing and the hum-clack of the dryer. I have just washed my clothes for the first time in three weeks - I have been wearing the same pair of pants for two and a half of them, along with the same pair of underwear, both only washed once, by hand. As you might suspect, I'm very happy about this. I have just purchased one bottle of Kinnie, a uniquely Maltese soft drink, from the vending machine next to the internet café/laundry room this hostel has provided me with. I figure it's probably more "native" than any of the rabbit dishes the wonderful touristy restaurants have offered me. You are about to see history in the making - the first live blog on "Where Is Jolly Now?". I am about to let you witness my drinking of this drink, in real time.

The bottle is vaguely phallic - more cylindrical than most soda bottles, with a slightly larger bulge on the top than on the bottom. The liquid is iced-tea colored, which fizzes up nearly to the top (as have all my carbonated beverages here - they seem to have a problem). The label is orange fading to the same iced tea color. I'm slightly repulsed, or at least off-put. Orange is the refuge of the off-brands - Moxie, Orangeaid (although it might have an excuse), and now Kinnie. Blue? Pepsi. Red? Coke. Purple? Nobody wants to be purple, save maybe grape soda. Black? Coke Zero. Green? Christmas sodas?

Ok, so maybe that was a bad attempt at striking something deeper. At any rate, the description reads "A refreshing non-alcoholic drink made from bitter oranges and aromatic herbs." Bitter oranges? Bitter may go over decently in the UK, but this American does his drinks sugary, as all of my countrymen have done for generations. Herbs? I'm... intrigued? Nervous? At least it's non-alcoholic. The day I see a fizzy alcoholic drink served in a plastic soft drink bottle, well, I'm not going to make any promises, because getting back to the patriotic theme, if there's one thing we Americans are good at, it's finding new and more blasphemous ways of packaging our alcoholic beverages, and I'd rather not tempt fate.

(Side note: I think my sentence structure has become more complex since I've begun reading Heart of Darkness. Seriously amazing novella, by the way. I really really need to re-watch Apocalypse Now.)

The smell: Actually, quite intriguing. It smells like Christmas potpourri in liquid form. Sweet, with spicy oranges and yes, herbs. Don't know what kind of herbs - maybe a roast turkey blend?

Ok, here we go. First a sip - interesting. I think I'll be able to finish it, but I don't think I'll ever want another one after that. You definitely get the bitter - it gets under your tongue. I had no idea I had taste buds down there, but what few there are are definitely going "BITTER", even as I type. A full drink - the fizziness is perfect - if Coke could do this regularly, every Coke would be ecstasy. But that aftertaste - charitably I could call it tolerable. Charitably. It's only on the bottom of the tongue, but - well, it's bitter oranges. Incredibly bitter, just before the point where you need to wash your mouth out.

I'm sorry, but I can't finish this. The bitterness has gotten to my stomach. It's such a shame too, because otherwise it's actually not half bad.

So, why did I just waste five, possibly ten minutes of your life like this? Is there a grander point, some sort of allegory towards the Malta experience?

No seriously. Tell me if you know. I thought I was just bored, and wanted to avoid writing about my travels.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, writing this blog has become a chore. A chore I know you all deeply appreciate, so I will continue to struggle to write it (as much as it has kept my procrastination skills sharply honed for college), but a chore none the less.

Venice Part II

VENICE, ITALY

So here I am, walking around Venice at four in the morning, feeling
very upset, yet at the same time very happy with my decision. I don't
normally buy into new-agey stuff, but it was like those people were
just bad news, and simply getting out of their physical presence and
the negative vibes they were putting off immediately brightened my
mood. Not to mention that I had taken control of my trip again; I was
not going to let them spoil this for me. And immediately I was taken
by this city.

The air was cold, but this time I was bundled up, protected. The most
amazing thing about Venice at night - it completely shuts down. I'm
used to New York, where there's always somebody out there. But from
four to five am, I saw maybe five people. It was fantastic; with
Wilco's Kicking Television as my soundtrack, calming my frazzled mind,
the city was mine to discover.

It's funny how the little things really grab hold of you. Venice is
covered with alley dogs, and as I left the hostel I saw one of them
staring at me from across the piazza. I slowly approached it, and put
my hand up to its nose. He even wagged his tail for a bit. But when I
reached out to pet him, he put his tail between his legs and ran back
20 feet, cowering. My heart broke - I wanted to slowly feed this dog
until it trusted me, then bring it home. It was the most adorable
thing. As I walked on, for about two or three hundred meters he
followed me, always staying twenty or thirty feet back. Oh, I was in
love!

Eventually he began to feel uncomfortable, and I stopped seeing him in
the corner of my eye. But the city's simple charms revealed themselves
to me. Clothes drying over a canal. Renaissance-style homes lit up at
night. A charming japanese tea house/inn, where I'm definetly staying
when I come back. A trash bag randomly suspended inches above the
ground by a string stretching three stories high. The glimmer of
lights off the water. Stumbling upon a stunning marble palace, with no
one but you to admire it. Viewing a thousand year old church,
seemingly abandoned. Navigating the tiny alleyways of a beautiful
city, paused in time, able to meander at your own pace, surely but
steadly reaching your goal. It was magic.

I reached the main bridge crossing the Grand Canal right as blue was
beginning to cross the sky. I decided to unplug the music and simply
hear the birds chirp and watch the city come back to life. For the
next half an hour I got to watch the sun rise over the Grand Canal.

At one point I thought, this is just out of a picture in a museum.
Then I realized this very scene, at this very angle, probably is
hanging in some museum somewhere, painted by some master. In fact, I
had a déjà-vu feeling the whole time.

By six I had had enough of the sun, and was ready to head off to Paris
to see Levin and immerse myself in the familiar. However, upon
arriving at the train station (a piece of facist archetecture that
stands in a depressing contrast to the rest of the city), I found that
while I could make the connection to Milan no problem, the TGV to
Paris was booked solid for the next four days. Damn Easter. I grabbed
some (very expensive) fresh squeezed OJ and a few croissents, and
hopped on the next train to Milan, hoping to maybe catch a last-minute
cancellation. Worse comes to worse, I'd just go to Rome for Easter; I
had a reservation anyway.

I really wish I had gotten to see more of Venice, and if I get the
chance again this trip I'd like to go back. But despite it all, Venice
will remain one of the highlights of my trip.

I'm alive

ROME, ITALY

Hey, just a quick update. I swear, I have posts in the works. Like, 12 of them. (I've got a "to write about" list.) It's just that I only really have time to write on the train in and out of Rome, and half the time I just want to listen to music and wake up. Not to mention that writing on an iPhone can be a bit of a hassle. I made it into Venice, it was amazing and disappointing and dramatic. That post will be up soon. I love cappuccinos. That post will be up soon.

So, as I am wont to say, I'm sorry, but y'all will just have to wait. In the mean time, I've been uploading pictures between beers here at the hostel's bar, so take a look. You can get a sense what I've been up to that way, at least.

Venice is crazy awesome (if not the people)

VENICE, ITALY

Oh wow. This place rocks. I have a lot of work as far as myself goes, but even acknowledging that, there's no denying the ridiculous, overwhelming beauty of this city and its life. Paris is gorgeous, more romantic, but its different. It's odd. Perhaps it's because of the people I saw each city with, but Paris is more charming. Venice is ridiculous. Everything, every rio, every amazing view, every spectacular alleyway, every sunset is equally gorgeous, so that after twenty minutes, though you can't deny the beauty, it's cheapened by its extreme and common nature. Still, damn this place is great.

When I got here, all I could think about was holy shit; I'm in Italy. Everybody is speaking this beautiful language. Everybody looks Italian. I'm in the land of my ancestors. The food. The history. The Romans. The Renaissance architecture. The fashion. The women. My god I love Italy. I want to spend all two months and a million euros here. I want to get my citizenship. If they had French bread, I would truly have found heaven.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Of course, you have to know about the people I found, and the drama that ensued. Of course.

Just an aside: nothing stabilizes your mind like some Wilco. I only just discovered this, but god bless the fact that I did.

Ok, so it was actually pretty awesome. I'm running to the train station in Ljubljana, and I get there one minute before the train is scheduled to arrive. As I'm reflecting on my luck that the train is ten minutes late, I here American English. I am happy.

I turn towards the voice and say, panting, "well, looks like I made the train, eh?" In front of me is one cute blond, who later will remind me a whole hell of alot of Jen Goss, a damn cute blond who is just a smidge out of my league, and two cool-looking guys. They all look my age, though later I'll find out they're all between 20 and 23, and like they've been on the trail for a while. We all hit it off pretty well, and grab seats on the train when it arrives a few minutes later.

The train ride is fantastic.

Quick aside, while I'm thinking about it. I'm not sure if I miss her exactly, but god dammit I really miss the sense of security, confidence and love that Shayne brought me. I was never alone when I was with her. No matter what happened, I had her. Now what? My friends don't text fast enough. God damn I question my sanity.

Anyway. Sorry about that. But yeah, the train ride to Venice at 2.22 am, I was expecting to read, listen to music, and sleep, but instead we stated up until five am, chatting and laughing. There was am old Slovenian drunk on board who, while initially a creepy old man, came alive once he managed to open the stuck bathroom door. With the Jen Goss-alike inside. It was hilarious. Before she had gone inside, we could not open the door, and had given up. Then, this man who had seconds ago been smoking and mumbling in his sleep for us to shut up simply arises, walks to the door, kicks it, it opens like magic, he pronounces, "Open!", and he sits and closes his eyes. It was marvelous.

Anyway, after my friend got locked in the bathroom and Mr. Drunk repeated his trick, he became much more entertaining. He passed around a bottle of disgusting schnapps (which my friends loved for some reason), and we all steadly became tipsy-to-drunk. Mr. Drunk began hitting on a few of us, but after we made it clear that was not acceptable, he moved on to an admittedly gorgeous blond Italian. He got slapped, we laughed, and as things calmed down, Jennice laid her head on my shoulder, and we all fell asleep.

I woke up and sea was all around the train. We were on this huge land bridge connecting Venice and the mainland, with cars on one side and boats on the other. I didn't realize this, but Venice is actually a bunch of offshore islands, for a long time only accessible by boat.As we passed, you
could see the wild islands that dot the sea off Venice.

We got off, and stepped into the train station to try to figure out exactly where we were staying. You see, unlike me, these people had booked a hostel the night before. The problem was, they had decided to go to Venice on a drunken spur-of-the-moment, so apparently they hadn't written down the name of the hostel, or where it was, or any way to contact them. We managed to scrounge up one scrawled note, which apparently last night constituted "the directions": San Marco. AKA Saint Mark's Square, only the biggest landmark in Venice. It's like putting down "The Colosseum" for your Roman hostel; it's completely useless.

Anyway, while we're figuring out what to do, one of my companions steps outside, comes back in and says, "Have you seen this shit?"

I look out for the first time, and shout, "There's water in the streets!"

"Well yeah, I was talking about the architecture, but that's pretty awesome too."

Venice is gorgeous. The water adds a sparkling backdrop to some of the most beautiful buildings in Europe. Again, just look at the pictures. There's no way I can do justice to this place, except to rely on hackneyed, yet accurate phrases. This place has a certain magic to it, every tiny gesture is infused with romance and passion and beauty. It's the kind of place that inspires you to actually stand and watch the sun rise for half an hour, and have the whole experience feel electric.

The coolest thing about Venice: no cars. The road into town leads to a massive car park, and after that it is all ancient alleys and canals. Major transport is done exclusively by boat, with little carts specially designed to navigate the alleyways and bridges and steps of Venice. This place operates entirely at a walking pace; it's like you've been transported back a hundred and fifty years. As such, there isn't a single wide thouroughfare in the city. Venice is one enormous maze of alleys and bridges, with an occasional square appearing around a corner. It's fantasic, spectacular, stunning.

But back to reality. After wandering around Venice for an hour or so, following the seemingly random signs pointing us towards St. Mark's square, (and having the most wonderful croissent), we eventually made it. We just had no clue where to go after that. We had managed to find a wifi connection, and so we had the confirmation email pointing us to the Art Deco Hostel on St. Marco Street. Where that was we had no idea. I eventually just went into a hotel and put myself at the concierge's mercy. I came out with directions, and we made it there within 15 minutes.

I don't know how they managed to do it, but this place was luxury. Two beds, two full baths, towels, silk sheets, soap (!), breakfast delivered by room service (!!!) - we were kings for a day. I immediately took a shower, knowing it will be the most luxurious shower I will have for the next four months, and took a five hour nap. It was lovely.

I wish I could tell you more about St. Mark's Square, but my friends didn't want to stay. This was probably my first sign that these guys weren't my kind of people. They didn't care one bit for the square. While I thought it was stunning, and wanted to see the museums, they thought it was gaudy, and didn't do museums. Instead, we wandered around some more. All day in fact. We probably covered a good half of the city in one day. I didn't mind, exactly, but after a while I did want to, you know, do something.

We nearly took a gondola ride, but at 20 euro each, some of the others simply balked. It's expensive, but exactly how often are you in Venice? Oh well, next time.

--------------------------

Ok. So, this is where the drama begins. It's getting late, and we're looking for a supermarket to grab a picnic dinner. We've been cracking inappropriate jokes all day - depression jokes, dead baby jokes, etc. So when Gossifer starts ragging on hot blonde for not liking almonds, of all things. I join in, "Oh my goodness! You should just go kill yourself. Right now. No, I'm serious." I play on this theme for a bit until it wears itself out.

Thirty seconds later, I hear the American girl who reminds me of Jen Goss (not in this aspect) say, "I can't take this anymore," and go running off down an alleyway, with one of my companions following her. Now, I had progressively been getting the sense throughout the day of being the fifth wheel: they had been telling more inside jokes, more awkward moments, etc. But now, I felt vilified. Apparently, she had tried to commit suicide three days earlier.

Initially I was horrified, and felt like shit. But pretty soon I began to just feel mean. I mean, if they all knew about this, why did no one shut me up? Why did they allow me to keep going? Why would no one at least offer me the solace of a "It's ok, you didn't know, just give her some space"? Instead, I now felt like a complete outcast. When we did get to the supermarket, I bought myself a bottle of wine. When we got back to the hostel, I drank it all.

They all snacked on what they had bought for each other, and I ate my pre-packaged meal. I had wanted to grab an authentic Italian pizza, but instead we were eating cheese with no bread (the bakeries were closed). After drinking my bottle of wine, I was pretty damn sloshed, so when they left to get more booze, I shouted fuck you down the stairwell at them. It wasn't my proudest moment.

I thought they'd be gone half an hour at most, so I decided I'd rather sit down and sober up. Finally three hours later, they arrive with a bottle of wine. I passively flipped them the bird, expressing how pissed I had become. Seriously, just ditching me like that? I realise they didn't think much of me at that point, but to not even let me know. Well fuck you, you know?

At any rate, they took it much more seriously than I had intended. I expected a laugh, a joke about "well hello to you too, WTF mate?" and a chance to explain what was pissing me off. Instead they all went into the next room, from the snippets of conversation I could hear through the wall deeply offended. ("The bloody finger? What the hell? What the fuck did we do?")

Then they all file out, sit down around me, and rip me to shreds. Apparently, they were taken aback by my very presence in their group. They were all friends before Ljubljana (though only for a few days), and as such thought it was odd that I had inserted myself back at the train station. That I had sat down in their group of four without asking. That when we'd gotten to Venice, I had just presumed that I was invited to join their suite.

Of course, this was the first I'd heard of any of this. I might have forgotten to specifically say, may I split your suite, and if so, my bad, but wouldn't the proper thing to do have simply been to simply ask me to find another place to stay? To simply have said I'm not so sure back when I had proposed the idea at the train station?

Thouroughly humiliated, I didn't know what to do. Clearly I was not wanted. Certainly I did not want to be there that night. They said they didn't hate me, that they had just been talking it over at the bar, and thought since they had been travelling for much longer than I, that maybe it would do me some good to learn some travel etiquette. All I could think was well fuck you too, condecending pricks. The whole thing really hurt me, as I had thought these people were my friends, and to have that suddenly be blown away was both shocking and made me question myself in ways I really didn't want to.

They had decided to leave me to myself in the central room, while they went off into a side bedroom to drink and laugh and talk. All loudly, so sleep was not an option. My paranoia was setting in, and it seemed like they were talking about me, me, me, I couldn't take it anymore, I had to get out of there. I told them I would head down to the 24 hour reception next door and use their wifi. We agreed that since they'd be
going out for more wine soon, they'd hang on to the key, and they'd drop it off at reception. Whoever wanted to come back first would pick up the key, and let the other in later.

Well, it turns out the reception area was locked tight. At three in the morning, if you rang the buzzer, an angry Italian man sleeply opened the window and, assuming you were a bum, told you there was nothing he could do about the cold. So, I went back to the building with the rooms and tried to get inside. That door was locked. I tried ringing the buzzer, but there were five of them, each unlabeled, and I had no idea whether I was waking some unfortunate couple up. At any rate, nobody answered.

At that point my only option was to wait for them to come looking for more booze, and grab the key from them. So, without a jacket, in 35-40 degree weather, wind blowing and everything, I settled down in an ATM's recessed spot, and curled up with Obama's book, expecting to wait maybe half an hour or so.

After two hours I was freezing, and preparing myself to spend the night out on the streets.

Finally one of them came out at 3:30, hoping to snag a bottle off reception. I came back to the room, charged up my iPhone, and decided that despite the fact I had already paid 25 euro for the room, I'd rather wait at the train station for the next train to Milan. From there I could decide whether to go on to Rome, or see a friendly face in Paris. In fact, at the time I was nearly certain I'd much rather see Levin. So I packed up my things and left.

So Venice was, well, a learning experience. It got much better, though. Next post I'll fill you in.

Lizards! And Monkfish! And Beer!!

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

Real quick, since I'm about to leave Roc and Živa's apartment to catch a train to Vienna. Past few days have been a little less hectic, but still lots of fun. Yesterday Dad and I went to Ptuj, and the scenery was great, but it wasn't the highlight of the trip. The highlight was finally getting the chance to simply sit down and enjoy a meal while people-watching. I grabbed a pizza, and Dad some lasagna, and we got the chance to enjoy the glorious weather (PS - I'm loving the sunglasses) and watch one father play Superman with his child. He'd throw a superball on the ground, and fly his child around, trying to catch it.

Side note - I've noticed I'm spending a very large amount of time talking about the food here. Interesting how my mind works, no?

Ptuj is a very pretty town, with much more medieval and renaissance architecture surviving than anything we had seen outside of Ljubljana. There was one monastary with pink walls and ornate white carvings on the outside. It was completely abandoned - no tours until high tourist season - so we explored a bit. We found lizards! (Ok, not exactly what you go to Europe for, but c'mon, lizards! In holes!)

When we got to the castle, we found (and I hate to say this almost as much as I hate how much I'm using parenthesis) another two-story white horseshoe castle, like Ljubljana, like Skofja-Loka. Inside, however, was an actually interesting museum with some cool medieval artifacts. There was a tapestry detailing the Cyclops in the Odessey (to think, they had access to the greats here), some lawn gnomes, a great medival art section, and a really cool dragon chandelier. I love the dragons here. The dragon is the national symbol, and wonderfully alive, fantastic dragons are everywhere.

Afterwards my father and I changed, and we met the whole family at the best restaraunt in town, Aš. (pronounced - yes - Ass.) They serve primarily fish, and so we had an enormous monkfish that was apparantly swimming in the wild that day. It was delicious, but somehow I don't feel right eating wild fish. There's so few of them left!

Once I got home I encountered what I fear will become a regular foe of mine - handwashing laundry. My god this is a time consuming, seemingly pointless exercise. First, the soap I have is on dissolvable sheets, and I thought 150 would cover the 140 or so days of this trip. Well last night I probably went through 20 of these sheets. Unless your washing one or two things, you really need four sheets for a full sink, and even then there's only a few suds. I really feel like 10 might give you a good amount of soap, except if that were the case, I'd be out of soap in a month. Next, you have to agitate your clothes forever, especially if you have stockpiled dirty laundry.

Finally, I refuse to believe clothes dry. Ever. I washed nearly everything, and when I got up this morning, I had to put on wet socks. After eight hours of drying on the porch, nothing was ready to wear. Today I left the apartment, grabbed cappuchino and found a wifi connection, did all my internet stuff for a few hours, came back at five, and still, nothing. I had to crank up the heat, put all my clothes on the radiators (including one pair of socks in the oven), and wait half an hour before they were dry enough to even pack. I had to brush off saying goodbye to Nevenka just so I could wait for my clothes to dry. I have no idea what I'm going to do in a hostel.

I was looking forward to having today to myself - finally just being able to wander - but Ižtoc and Roc apparantly had other plans for me. At dinner the previous night, Ižtoc offered to take me to see the Hostel Celica, one of the best hostels in Europe. But when we got there, they weren't offering tours! So instead we simply hung out in the refurbished prison, talking about the relative merits of capitalism and communism. My goodness, to be at the forefront of the Cold War, to see how seriously these people take communism, it's a bit of an eye-opener to the biases of living in the West.

After dealing with my clothes and setting up my Flickr account (and having the most amazing hot dog here - they hollow out a baguette, warm it up from the inside, and stick in a hot dog and mustard), I met Roc at eight to hit the town. Roc had offered to show me what nightlife Ljubljana has on a Tuesday night, and it was fantastic. As soon as I got there, Roc said we couldn't leave without having a beer. Živa, Roc and I all went to the Metalična (or something like that), the artist's neighborhood surrounding the Hostel Celica. It was like Burning Man all over again. The whole courtyard is covered in head to toe with punk graffiti, people of all types (though mostly leather and stud and mohawk types) hanging out, drinking beer, smoking all sorts of things (even though smoking in bars in prohibited; I saw the bartender smoking), and generally having a good time.

We had a few more, and as I finished discussing education policy in America, and my head became dizzier, we headed off to a concert next door. I swear, screamo is only good when you're drunk, but it sure can be good. I grabbed a button in Slovenian to remember the night by, and all I could think about was how much James (one of my more rough friends) would enjoy this.

I wish I could write more, but I've written too much as it is. Alright, I've got to catch the overnight to Venice. Wish me luck! (Haha! Venice!)

Goodbye Slovenia! I sLOVEenia you! (groan)

Watching BBC

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

I feel bad for the BBC world weatherman. The local newscast gets five minutes to cover CT, but this guy gets a minute at best to cover the whole world. I'm trying to figure out the weather in Slovenia and Italy, and by the time I find them on the map he's on to Africa. He says it's warm in Cape Town and is on to Asia.

C'mon, BBC, give the guy a break. If only so the weather is somewhat comprehensable.

Slovenia - Pretty much all of it

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

Sorry I haven't written, but I haven't been able to get to an internet connection really - my dad and my Slovenian family have kept me far far too busy. I think I will have to write these posts on my iPhone, as I am doing right now. These things are pretty nifty - I can update my podcasts over wifi, so I'll never be without my NPR! (Hi Lindsay!) My number's on the right, feel free to call.

I'm glad for the NPR, because I'm going through a news withdrawl. I'm getting the shakes without my daily dose of the Orange Satan. Who's up in the polls? What insane attack is Hillary pushing now? What does the Democratic party want me to think?! I DON'T KNOW!!! AHHH!!!

I turned on BBC after a few days and suddenly there are riots in Lhasa, explosions in Albania, tornados in Atlanta - I leave for three days, and the place goes to hell! Oh man these riots are crazy. I love the fact they're finally taking a stand, and I love what a slap in the face it is to the chinese, but seriously, now?! They've had 49 years to rise up, and they choose three months before I want to come? I was looking forward to Tibet more than any other area of China! On the one hand, I want them to succeed, but on the other hand, if things don't calm down soon the Chinese won't let me go.

But getting back to the trip. (Oh yeah, I'm in Europe :-) ) Ljubljana (pronounced Loo-bli-ana) is fantastic, and Slovenia is unbelievably gorgeous. The whole country is the size of Connecticut, and old Ljubljana is about the size of downtown Hartford, so the whole place is really easy to get around. And we've been everywhere. I've been exhausted this whole trip - Dad hasn't let me rest since we landed.

Day 1

Ok, so, a summary of what's been going on. The flight into Vienna was fine - I sat next to this adorable Polish grandmother who didn't speak a word of English, and had an impressive beard and moustache. She was too frail to put on her seat belt, so I ended up helping her quite a bit. Her family would come up to check on her every now and again, and they expressed their thanks with gestures. I thought it was a good start to the trip. :)

We landed in Vienna, picked up our rental car, and drove to Graz, Austria. It was OK, but we didn't have much time to spend there. Not to mention that no matter how enthusiastic my dad was, I was in no mood to do anything but sleep. One thing I did notice was the very high number of lingerie shops, something true in Ljubljana too. It's really distracting, actually; they all remind me a bit of Shayne. Nearly one out of ten stores must be a lingerie shop, and damn sexy lingerie too. European women sure must know how to dress, that's all I'm gonna say.

We drove to Ljubljana, and on the way we caught our first sight of the Alps. They're as big and beautiful as anything in the Rockies. I could go on, but this post is so long already, and there's so much left to say. Just take a look at the pictures, I wouldn't be able to do it justice anyways.

We got to Ljubljana, walked around a bit (look at the pictures - it's so quaint, so cute, so pretty), got my phone up and running, and met Uros (pronounced Oo-rohsh), one of my relatives who showed us our flat. It's a huge apartment which Marta, my grandmother's cousin lives in (she's off at the coast). Immediately we were whirled off to a ethnic-punk concert Yes, an ethno-punk concert. They're name is Orlec, and my grandmother's cousin's daughter's husband, Iztok (pronounced Ish-tok), travels with them and does their photography on the side. He's actually a director for the state television, but he loves Orlec, and I have to admit, they're pretty bitchin'. You have never seen such intense accordian - he was stomping and jumping and oh man it was amazing. The girls were cute (you'll notice I focused on one in particular in my photos), the all white audience could not dance, hard as they tried, and they played a song at the end written by a Slovenian-American in our honor. It was great, but when I got home I collapsed into bed.

Interesting sidenote - they're much more lax about some things here. Sonny, Uros's pregnant wife, was drinking when we went backstage, and nobody said anything! Everybody drives fast and smokes here, too. My dad's having a blast.

Day 2

The next day we got a tour of Ljubljana from Iztok, who is an awesome guy. Beard, leather jacket, carefree attitude, former champion gymnast, the guy's a rockstar. The whole family really loves showing us their country - it's great watching them try to recall their 7th grade history lessons. He took us up to Ljubljana castle, on the top of a hill in the center of town, and the views are simply stunning from there. The entire city is surrounded by forest and mountains and green, green farmland. We then had a traditional, and delicious meal of a veal leg. It was massive, meaty, and without a bit of veggie garnish. I like this country.

It's facinating to talk politics here. I have a feeling this is because my family was fairly well off in communist Yugoslavia, with Iztok, the state jounalist, and Nevenka, his wife the judge, but Iztok actually preferred communist rule. He was allowed to travel anytime he wanted, he and his children had more security, and he felt like there was much more prestige in being a Yugoslavian than a Slovenian. There was much less commercialization, much less of "this fucking competition, constant struggling." Though, everyone agrees the architecture sucked.

We were going to go to Ptuj (pronounced pitooey), but I finally forced the issue, and Dad allowed me to sleep. Thank god. I was so tired I hadn't really enjoyed anything. All I could think about was sleep. After this I felt much better. Jesus, this is supposed to be a vacation!

We went to an modern classical accordian concert (the accordian must be the national instrument), and while it was very minimalist, dark music, it was really good. The artist managed to incorperate the non-musical sounds of the instrument, like the clacking of the keys or the whoosh of air through the bellows in a really haunting way.

Day 3

We got up early (again), and finally met up with Roc and Ziva (pronounced Gee-va), who had come up to New York a few years ago. They had been busy until today. We drove to the coast to visit Marta and have a family lunch. We stopped off at Piran, one of the oldest towns in Slovenia. My god, the whole country is mountains and valleys! It was postcard views at every turn.

Piran is one of three towns on the tiny Slovenian coastline, a very Italian-influenced tourist town jammed onto a tiny peninsula jutting out into the Adriatic, with mountains and walls keeping inland invaders out. My camera's been getting alot of work.

After climbing up the walls and grabbing some delicious coffee, we actually crossed into Croatia, where Nevenka's brother, Matiesh, bought some land and has lived as a farmer for the past twenty years. Gorgeous, spectacular, blah blah blah. They had two dogs, and they reminded me so much of Sirus... I miss her. I met Marta, and though she didn't speak a word of English, she was absolutely charming. She made the most spectacular lunch! Just course after course, veal and pork leg, salad, octopus salad, potatoes, soup, and potizca, a delicious local sweet bread for dessert. Afterwards she told us about our family history.

Apparently, my great grandmother, a beer baroness, fell in love with a miner. This miner went to America, and sent back a ticket for my great-grandmother. Her family found out, and disowned her. She went anyway. The miner had told her he would meet her at the pier, but the day of her arrival, he had to work, so he sent his mining buddy to pick her up. The buddy went, and ended up stealing my great-grandmother!! My great-grandfather was a scoundrel!!

Day 4

The next day we slept in a bit before meeting Roc and Ziva at Skofja-Loka, a famous medieval town. It was cool, we had coffee there, but afterwards we were to drive to Bled, in the mountains, and we decided to take the backroads. What. A. Trip. Weaving up hundreds of feet, few guardrails, looking upon cloud-covered mountains echoing into the distance, and the valley below dotted with tiny villages, it was the prettiest landscape I have ever seen.

Finally we reached Bled. It was cloudy, but you could still make out the tiny island in the middle of the lake, and the spectacular church perched upon it, surrounded by Alps. This is where Tito vacationed, and you can see why.

We had a local dinner made up of sausage and meat in Bled. Roc is interesting. Shayne would have run away with him. He is always going on about how the country has become far too capitalistic. He was livid that the restaurant we ate at, one of his childhood favorites, was selling t-shirts. T-shirts! On the way there, he was talking about how inescapeable advertising is nowadays. You pay for the movie, and then the greedy theatres make you watch ads! Ziva actually works at an ad agency, and I have a feeling she doesn't agree with the rest of her familiy's views, but she keeps her mouth shut. Roc seems like the kind of guy who'd get killed in a revolution.

Then we came back to the flat, and that brings you up to date. This probably should be split up into a few posts, but I can't cut and paste with the iPhone, so oh well. I promise to write more frequently, if only so there's less to write each time!

Ok. It's late, I've got to sleep. We're getting up early to go to Ptuj. I miss you guys tremendously, please write!

T-3 Days

AMTRAK TO NEW YORK

This has been years in the making. I'm nervous, excited, scared, and have no idea what to expect. It still hasn't fully hit me that this is actually happening, but day by day it's dawning on me. I'm gonna be away from home, from any home, for five months. My backpack is my life. I'm strangely unanticipatory - I have a vague sense that something big is about to happen, but when I think about what the next five months are going to be like, my mind draws a blank. I think that's probably a good thing. I really have no idea what this is going to be like, and it's probably best to just take it day by day, instead of planning and anticipating too much. I'm gonna circumnavigate the globe. See the world. It doesn't matter too much what I think is out there, I'm going to find out.

I've got my shpiel down by now. What are you doing? Oh, well, Europe for two months, then the Trans-Siberian from Moscow through Mongolia into China, then taking the train through Vietnam and Cambodia into Thailand. Then I fly home. It's always fun to see how flabbergasted people sometimes get. This whole thing was surprisingly easy to pull off. Some research, some tickets, some visas, a few months work and a generous parental stipend was all it took.

This year has ripped me apart, and I've struggled to put myself back together. Shayne, the campaign, the depression, they all forced me to ask myself what is happiness, and how can a person achieve it in this world? I still don't know the answer. Throughout the year, I've been suffering for this moment. I gave up so much to be here. An exciting college experience, a sense of security, free time, friends. This trip started as a desire to get out of high school, to do something exciting and see something new. Now all I want is a sense of security. Maybe this will be a good experience in a different way - maybe I'll learn to achieve that sense of comfort and security from myself, and not my habits and surroundings. Who the hell knows.

What I do know is that this will be an exhilarating vacation. I think right now maybe a relaxing vacation is what I need, but I wouldn't dare pass this up. Hell, maybe I'll take a week on the Riviara. That'll be fun. :)

I'm packed (god my backpack's heavy), nearly have all my visas, and I'm just now beginning to realize how crazy this is, but it will be good for me, and I'll have a great time. Check here for stories from the trail. Eastward Bound!