(Ex)changed Forever

"Where are you going, Slovakia?"  No, that's a completely different country.

"Sylvania?" No, that's a lightbulb.

 

Piran and the Adriatic Coast

These are some of the conversations I would have when I told people that I was going to live in Slovenia for the school year.  At the time it seemed pretty funny.  I myself didn't really have any knowledge of the little European country and wasn't the least bit surprised that most people had never heard of it.  I would vaguely describe to them how it was away between Italy and Austria and carry on without any further thought.  But now, having lived here, met the people, hiked through knee deep snow in the Alps, swam in the warm waters of the Adriatic, criss-crossed the country several times, and had so many other experiences that couldn’t possibly list them all, I have a feeling that answering these same questions will now come with a bit of a sting.

I still can’t quite comprehend how a place that just months ago was little more than a place on the map can be the setting of so many of my memories and been such a huge part of my life over the last year.  It’s equally hard for me to understand how Slovenia is not world famous.  Almost everyone around the world knows its neighbours well and yet it still seems to get forgotten, lost in the shadows of the Alps perhaps.  It’s centrally located on the continent and more akin to countries of Western Europe and yet it typically gets thrown in as part of Eastern Europe.  But no matter how much or how little people know about Slovenia, it will forever be one of my favourite places. 

The city hall and one of the main square of the Old Town

 While it is way too early to pick out what I will remember most about Ljubljana, I can already tell that some things are just simply unforgettable.  I know I will never forget the city’s stunning view of the snow-capped Alps and the feeling of being repeatedly amazed every time I caught a glimpse of them between buildings or at the end of a street.  The rocky peaks tower above the surrounding hills and seem to occupy the entire northern fringes of Ljubljana.  They are their best at sunset, when the fading evening sun illuminates them as if giant flood lights have been set up to mirror the light shining on the city’s castle.

Restaurants in the Old Town are right on the street

 I know I will never forget the history and how old everything is.  This year is the 2000^th anniversary of the founding of the Roman city of Emona on the same site; remnants of which can still be seen amongst the much newer (but still old) buildings.  Then of course there’s the castle which sits on top of the hill as a testament to the city’s medieval past and watches over the Old Town, tucked away just below it and lining the banks of the slowly ambling Ljubljanica river.  A patchwork of buildings from various centuries and in various styles, this part of the city is a largely pedestrianized area and the narrow alleyways and open squares are an obstacle course of tables and chairs set out by the many cafes, bars, and restaurants.  Wandering through these streets it’s easy to come across a church or some other building which has been there since the 13^th century or even earlier.

The main Preseren Square with a statue of Franc Preseren,
the national poet and the Franciscan Church

I know I will never forget the simple things like how the street signs not only point you in the direction of the city’s different neighbourhoods but also to other countries.   It still seems weird to me that at a traffic light you can just take a right to Croatia or a left to Austria.  I won’t forget Union beer and always arguing with some Lasko drinker about which of Slovenia’s two brews was better.  Also being able to buy them just about anywhere and enjoy them on the lawn in Kongresni Trg or sitting by the river at the “beach” (actually just concrete steps leading down to the water) with a few friends.

 Also, I’m certain I will never forget how the city and the country felt like home.  After arriving late at night at the end of some long road trip and being able to put away the maps because we already know where to go and how to get there.  Knowing which streets are One Ways and which traffic lights were particularly long.  Which streets were only for busses and knowing that you have to shoulder check because there’s more than likely someone on a bicycle beside you.  Not having to look up the bus schedule or find out which number I needed to take and how the language, even though I still don’t understand it, sounded so familiar that it was almost as if I could.  Coming ‘home’ felt particularly nice after a brutal day of hitch hiking in torrential rain from Budapest, and after ten days in the chaos and strangeness of Morocco.  It surprised me every time how this foreign city wasn’t so foreign.

Ljubljana's historic Opera House

Leaving my life in Slovenia behind truly won’t be easy, and on my last Friday the city made it that much harder to leave.  There was the weekly Open Kitchen event where the stalls from the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market are taken over local restaurants, wineries, and breweries who turn some of their specialities into street food;  people all over downtown walk around with a plate of food in one hand and a glass of beer or wine in the other.  On top of this, there were no less than ten different live bands, street theatres, entertainers and musicians playing in every corner of the Old Town, crowds of enthusiastic audiences surrounding each of them.  At six o’clock there was the Germany-France game of the World Cup and so literally every bar with a TV screen was full to capacity with rowdy ‘Football’ fans.  We had to move down our list of preferred places a couple different times before we actually found somewhere with enough room.  To cap things all off it was the end of the Ljubljana Festival which over the course of the last week had organized numerous concerts, operas, movies, and other events on a large stage in one of the main squares. 

The end result of all these events in addition to the perfect weather was that the city had a vibrancy to it the likes of which I have never seen before and I was left with the feeling that I would be perfectly happy to stay here forever.  But that, of course, isn’t realistic and while having a day like this as one of my last may make it harder to leave, it might just be the perfect way to do so.  This is the way I will remember Ljubljana and this will be what I look forward to seeing again when I come back to this city at some point in the future, whenever that may be.                                 

 

Hop Schweiz

Aside from the trains, buses, and low cost flights, another increasingly popular way to get around Europe is by rideshares or carpooling.  There are a number of different websites where people post the details of their planned routes and how much they want and with just a text or a phone call, your transportation is set.  I first heard about this system and the most popular Slovenian website when I hitch hiked to Budapest in the fall as everyone that picked us up informed us that this new system has pretty well put an end to the era of thumbing it.  I had thought about trying it out on various occasions since then but finally got around to it last week and caught a ride to Zurich, Switzerland to take advantage of Patrick's invitation to hang out with him and Marcel for the weekend.

The Zurich river front

When I thought about taking a rideshare the only scenario that I could think of was that I'd end up in the back of a 1970's Volkswagen van with some kind of travelling hippy band but, thankfully, this was not the case.  Instead, I would be going with a very normal middle aged woman on her way to visit her daughter in Bern in addition to her friend who we would drop off in Salzburg and a couple other girls who were also just taking a rideshare.  In the end everything worked out well.  We met very early in the morning and thanks to our detour through Salzburg I got to see a little more than I would have by bus or train, even if only fleetingly.   Of course, travelling in this manner is a little more unpredictable than other ways; I joke that between Salzburg and Zurich we drove Slovenian style, which means we stopped for coffee every hour.  The trip may have taken a little longer than I had anticipated but I was still in Zurich by mid afternoon and had met some interesting people in the process.

By the time I got to Zurich Patrick and Marcel were waiting for me at the train station and we headed out to check out the city.  Patrick lives and works in the nearby city of Baden so he was our host and tour guide for the weekend.  We spent the afternoon walking through the Old Town before stopping to have a beer down by lake, the name of which I still cannot properly pronounce (Zürichsee).  Zurich, and probably most of Switzerland, is a playground for the world's rich and famous.  The lake's marinas are full of expensive boats, high end cars cruise down the waterfront, and the famous Swiss watch companies have stores with prices nothing short of ridiculous.  I was going to buy a souvenir Tag Heuer but I was short by about 10,000 dollars.  But while you do feel under dressed just walking around, as I have found in almost every European city its still not hard to find people lounging in a park, enjoying a coffee at a sidewalk cafe and just generally taking things a little slower.

As the World Cup is in full swing we even took in a "Public Viewing" while in Zurich.  No, not a funeral but rather a broadcast of the games on a large TV screen in the city centre.  We watched the Germany-Ghana game and I got in the World Cup spirit and helped Patrick and Marcel cheer on their national team.  Being in a country that actually cares about soccer during the World Cup is a pretty interesting experience.  The whole city feels alive and the atmosphere is almost as if you're at a live sporting event, and as Switzerland is such an international place there were fans cheering for all sides.

Lucerne's famous bridge.

We also took a day trip to the famous mountain city of Lucerne.  Nestled amongst the snow capped peaks of the Alps and lying at the foot of a glacial lake of the same name, Lucerne is pretty much the Switzerland of everyone's imagination.  The medieval alleyways of the old town are hemmed in by the towers and turrets of the hilltop wall which marks the start of the rolling green hills surrounding the city.  Unfortunately we didn't come across any yodellers in our wanderings but I guess it'd be unrealistic to hit ALL of the stereotypes.  Still, Lucerne's backdrop looked remarkably similar to that Price is Right game.

Lucerne and area

In the end the weekend went by way too fast as has been the case with so much this past year.  It was great to catch up with Marcel and Patrick one last time before we go our separate ways until who knows when.  Patrick will continue his stay in Switzerland, while Marcel heads off to visit our friend Florentia in Mykonos, Greece before leaving to start his internship in Namibia at the end of July.  I of course still have much to look forward to; as always there remains many places to go and much to see.

We also rented a peddle boat and spent most of the time trying to see how fast we could go. 

               

May Mayday

I've recently been struck with the realization that with only one week of classes left, time to do and see the remaining things on my list is quickly running out.  Luckily though over the past few weeks I've been able to check a couple more items off.

Just as we were leaving Venice we crossed the Grand Canal on the
Rialto Bridge and came across this beautiful sunset view

Making the short trip to Venice was a priority right from the beginning and so I'm not quite sure why I didn't make it happen before now.  I guess it was partly because of the weather, I was planning on going in March during the famous Carnival but due to heavy rain the city was pretty much under water as opposed to on top of it.  Also, I just got caught up with going to far flung destinations like Morocco and Tunisia.  Anyway, I finally made it to Venice a few weeks ago along with Kyle and Pierre-Olivier, a couple other Canadians from Toronto and Montreal respectively.  We made it there by the early afternoon and were quickly amid the millions of other tourists wandering around the canals, alleyways, and piazzas.  Despite the huge crowds though it was still easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of being in such a famous and historic city.  It's been a world famous tourist destination for centuries, and rightly so.  What surprised me most, other than maybe how expensive it is, was how big it is.  We spent hours walking around and only saw a fraction of what there is to see.  You could probably spend days there, if only you could afford it.  Yes, it's expensive, yes, there's lots of people, and yes, it's totally worth it.

The weekend after that, I was off to Germany to reunite with Marcel, Julian, and Lukas who I hadn't seen since they left Ljubljana at the end of last semester.  After enduring the frustrating and somewhat embarrassing ordeal of missing my bus, my trip was finally under way although a day later than expected.  I eventually made it to Mannheim though, where Marcel welcomed me at the bus stop with beers in hand.  I spent the next couple of days with Marcel and Julian in their university home which, despite all accounts from almost every German person I've met, really was quite nice.  We also went to nearby Heidelberg which probably looks more like the Germany you imagine, with old cobbled streets and a castle on the hill.  

Patrick, Marcel, Julian, and me in Heidelberg

From there I made the short trip to Frankfurt where I spent the day with Lukas who doubled as an awesome tour guide.  He showed me the sights and the food and drink.  We sat on the banks of the Main river with some Apfelwine (leave it to the Germans to make an alcoholic apple juice), and had what must be the best schnitzel in the world.  I had always imagined Frankfurt to be a very industrial, typical big city but it proved to be a very liveable place with lots of green space and cool bars and pubs on seemingly every corner.

After that Lukas took me to his adopted home of Marburg where he goes to university.  Its a relatively small city with about 80,000 people but has a university with around 25,000 people which makes it feel like the whole city is one big campus.  Everywhere you look there's university age people sitting around drinking beer, lounging around in one of the numerous parks, canoeing down the river, playing drinking games, and just generally taking advantage of being in college.  It seemed awesome to me but I'm sure if you live there and you're not in university it would get old really fast.

The sprawling metropolis that is Frankfurt am Main

The very green city of Marburg with its castle on the hill.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Germany, what small part of the country I did see anyway.  Places like Mannheim and Marburg are ones that I would likely never go to if I didn't know people that were there so I'm glad I had the opportunity.  It was all really nice but mostly it was just cool to meet up with the guys in their own country after sharing in the experience of living in a foreign place.

As for being back in Ljubljana things are going okay, other than the odd panic attack I get when I think about all the things I still want to do before I leave, like actually write about Ljubljana for a change.   Time really has gone by way too fast, but I guess that's a good thing.

                       

Tunisia is Calling

A colourful door in Tunis

Several years ago now, Mom and Dad gave me a  book called "The Road Less Travelled."  In it are featured off the beaten path alternatives to some of the world's most popular sites and destinations, the goal being to show that  in less visited countries there are still amazing things to see and do even if they don't get the same attention as their famous counterparts.  For some reason or another, this particular book has had a great influence on me and has inspired to go to many of the places I have been and continues to help shape where I want to go in the future.  There's something about going to these less known locations that awakens the explorer in me and leaves me wanting to go further.  One of these places featured in the book captivated me a little more than the others.  Somewhere in the deserts of Tunisia in North Africa stood an ancient Roman amphitheatre to rival the Colosseum in Rome, and was perhaps even a little more impressive.  Ever since then, it was almost as if this place that had been mostly forgotten by the rest of the world,  El Jem, was calling me and I knew I had to get there.

Luckily my friend Jory, whom I met in Morocco at Christmas, shares in my sense of discovery and was actually the one who first suggested that we go to Tunisia, although I didn't have to put much thought into it before I agreed to go.  Before we knew it we were in Tunis, the capital city, and were frequently exchanging remarks like, "I can't believe we're here!".  As with many things I've done this year, setting foot on Tunisian soil went from being a lofty ambition to a reality in a scary short period of time.

One of the rooms of the Ottoman palace at the
Bardo Museum

Typically when I go to a new place I like to have at least a rough plan of what to see and do before I get there, but this time the only thing I knew I had to see was El Jem, leaving everything else wide open.  The end result of this, was that I seemed to be continually blown away with what we saw.  One of the first things that Jory and I did was go to the Bardo Museum in Tunis.  I hadn't even so much as heard of it until about a half an hour before we were there but it proved to be one of the most memorable museums I've ever seen.  Built around the former palace complex of the Ottoman governor and renovated with ultra modern extensions, the building itself is a site to behold, let alone its contents. The main attraction though are the immaculate Roman mosaics displayed on just about every inch of wall space with some whole pieces extending the full three stories of the museum.

The feeling of being impressed turned out to be a general theme of the trip as it would turn out.  The next day we headed off in search of Dougga, a ruined ancient Roman city about an hour and a half west of Tunis.  To get there, we took a 'Louage' which is basically a collective taxi van which only heads off to the specified location when its full; a funny concept and very Middle Eastern.  As we would find out later, this is not a mode of transportation taken by many tourists, but as we flew down the highway with nothing but natural AC (windows rolled down), while making frequent stops to check on the cargo of doors which were loosely strapped to the roof with binder twine, I couldn't see why not.  Most importantly though, we made it to Dougga and were left to explore the site virtually on our own.

From the top of the theatre at Dougga

Other than Italy itself, the area of modern day Tunisia was among the first to be taken over by the Romans well over 2000 years ago, and was also part of the empire even after Rome had fallen.  As a result, there are ruins of large, wealthy cities just like Dougga scattered throughout the country.  I had always imagined Tunisia to be completely Sahara-like desert, but as you can see, the to the west of Tunis is surprisingly green.  We had a bit of an issue getting back to Tunis though.  Our plan of taking the bus back fell through when it unexpectedly left half an hour early leaving us, and several locals, stranded.  We eventually found another way but of course it was considerably more expensive and involved us playing an integral role in bribing a police officer.  Not exactly a recommended way to travel, but its not as though I'm writing this from a Tunisian prison.  

Sidi Bou Said

Our trip wasn't all ancient history either.  We took a trip to the Tunis suburb of Sidi Bou Said with its white washed buildings and expansive Mediterranean views, and spent a couple nights in the more resort oriented and touristy Sousse.  This part of Tunisia is a popular holiday destination, particularly with people from Eastern Europe and Russia so it has a very different feel to it than Tunis, where it felt like we were the only foreigners.  I still didn't feel bad going for beers at the Wild West Saloon though.

The core of Sousse is the medina.  One of those old, tightly packed warrens of maze like streets and buildings, at the centre of which is the souk.  Nowadays its mostly souvenirs that are sold there but even just taking a few steps off the main path is like going back in time.  Butcher shops hang skinned goats out front, sacks of colourful spices crowd the walkway, people sit around and drink tea and smoke ALL day.  Its really cool to see and you get the sense that nothing has really changed since, well, ever.

View across the medina of Sousse

And of course, we made the short trek from Sousse to El Jem to see the Roman amphitheatre.  As we walked out of the train station in the small backwater town I wasn't quite sure which direction we needed to go.  I began to climb up the steps of a pedestrian bridge but I didn't have to go that high before I saw it.  Towering above the small single story buildings of the town and the desert that surrounds it, the ancient stadium dominates the skyline in much the same way that it would have almost 2000 years ago.  Its remarkably well preserved due to the hot dry air and so its not hard to imagine it as it used to be; filled to capacity with 35,000 spectators watching gladiators fight and people being fed to lions.  Unlike the Colosseum in Rome, you can walk along the highest level and down below the floor where the slaves and animals were kept in their cells.  It was definitely worth the hype I had attributed to it and what's more, I got to see for my own eyes a place I had imagined for years.

The outside of the amphitheatre

This time last year as I was writing an essay on the Arab Spring, which was sparked by the revolution in Tunisia in 2011, it seemed as though I might never get to Tunisia and I definitely would have never imagined that I would be there just a year later.  Of course, the country is pretty well back to normal now, aside from a light military presence and the odd space blocked off with razor-wire.  But much in the same way that I was surprised to be there, the country itself continually surprised me.  On the one hand, Tunis is probably the dirtiest city I've ever been to; a layer of garbage chokes the streets every night but is magically cleaned up by morning.  Yet still, there was something about it that let me see beyond the trash and still be able to enjoy the city.  Maybe it was the friendly people and their laid back attitude or maybe it was just sheer excitement on my part.  Either way, when you're on the road less travelled you take the good with the bad and just keep exploring.

                                                   

Where the East Actually Meets the West

The term, "East meets West" seems to get thrown around a lot these days.  I hear it everywhere I go.  I heard it when I was in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and I heard it used to describe Budapest, Hungary.  The term was even used as far West as Morocco in describing French architecture in Fes, and its certainly been used to explain Slovenia's location on the fringes of central Europe.  I've heard it used so many times that its tough to discern where the West actually ends and where the East might begin.  But in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital and my most recent destination, not only does East meet West but North meets South, old meets new, and worlds collide.

Our rental car was slightly better than this.

Getting there proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Five of us left Friday afternoon in our rented Opel Corsa and in no time we had driven through most of Slovenia and across Croatia and were waiting in line at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Distance wise, it was the halfway point between Ljubljana and Sarajevo but as it would turn out, only a fraction of the total driving time.  Once we got into Bosnia the network of new, well laid out highways that span across Croatia and Slovenia felt as though they were a world away.  Virtually from here on out it was twisty two lane mountain roads with an average speed limit of 60km/hr with road signs that point you off in one direction only to leave you hanging at the next intersection.  On top of all this, I was following the Google maps directions on my phone which had me driving through increasingly remote villages on ever quieter side roads.  I finally lost all confidence in the directions when they instructed me to make a sharp turn up what looked more like a dry river bed than an actual road.  After consulting an actual printed map we managed to get on the right track, only it wasn't the end of our worries.

Driving through a town about 150km out of Sarajevo I had about a quarter of a tank of gas left which, according to the "Range Calculator" on the dashboard would be good for 250km so I wasn't worried.  But just as we left the city the terrible mountain road finally gave way to a brand new highway complete with a 130km/hr speed limit and since it was almost midnight at this point we had it all to ourselves.  As we made our way through the night the gas gage began to move at an alarming rate and soon the low fuel light came on, then it began to blink, then a warning came on the LCD screen "Refuel Now".  While everyone else in the car was sleeping I was quietly panicking as we went further and further without seeing a gas station and the thought of being stuck on the highway in the middle of the night became an ever more realistic possibility.  Finally, I saw a gas station up ahead but as I pulled in it was obvious that it was closed.  With the gas gage as low as it could possibly go, I began to coast my way down the highway, just waiting for the engine to die at any second.  Thankfully, like a light at the end of the tunnel, the outskirts of Sarajevo came into view and we soon limped into an open gas station, relieved and white knuckled.

Luckily, it didn't take long for Sarajevo to prove it was worth the stress of getting there.  Unlike anywhere else I've ever been and probably unique in the world, the city truly does embody the ubiquitous meeting of East and West.  One minute you're walking past mosques and through Middle Eastern bazaars and the next you're surrounded by European style cafes and buildings which look as though they've been transplanted from Vienna or Paris.  In a narrow valley along the Miljacka river, the city sprawls up the hillsides in all directions, the tightly packed houses broken only by the fields of white headstones.

Cemeteries like this are all over the city.
They are the most visible reminder of Sarajevo's dark history.

The cemeteries can be found all over the city and are the most glaring reminder of Sarajevo's recent history.  Less than 20 years ago the capital was the epicentre of Bosnia's violent civil war and underwent the longest siege in modern history.  From 1992 to 1995 the city was almost entirely cut off from the outside world as opposing forces vied for control of differing neighbourhoods.  In total, upwards of 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo alone, most of them civilians.  Before any of this, Sarajevo was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  It held the Winter Olympics in 1984, just four years before they'd be in Calgary, and was praised as being a model of religious and ethnic diversity, an example others should follow.  Unfortunately, it was this very diversity which made the war so bitter.   But despite the many buildings that are peppered with bullet holes and the red rose plaques commemorating particularly deadly attacks, the city does have a vibrant feel to it and is well on its way to returning to that former stature, but still doesn't have running water between midnight and six am.

On our last afternoon in the city we climbed through the narrow switch back streets to the top of a hill on the extreme eastern end of the city.  Standing at the vantage point near a ruined Ottoman fortress we could look down nearly the entire length of the valley.  As the last of the sunlight glinted off the river like a streak of gold through the city, the call to prayer rang out from dozens of mosques in every direction.  A unique experience befitting this unique city.

                      

The "Eastern Europe" Trip

When I was initially gearing up to come on this exchange the thing that excited me the most was the potential to travel.  It was even a factor in why I chose to come to Slovenia rather than one of the other 30 plus countries I could have gone to.  From here, every direction I go I’m bound to end up somewhere steeped in history, awash in natural beauty, or rich in culture, and usually it’s a combination of these things.  On top of that, while I’m on exchange my grades don’t matter (I just have to pass) and most of the friends I have made are also from other countries and so are in the same mindset to travel whenever possible.  Thanks to all these reasons, I am in the enviable position of being able to just look at a map, pick a place to go and then actually go there.  And that’s exactly what Marcel and Florentia and I did.  In about 10 minutes and using nothing but a map we planned out where we wanted to go for what would be our last trip together, at least for the foreseeable future.

The fairytale-like steps up to Graz's Schloss Eggenburg

Not long after, we kicked things off by hopping a train to Graz, Austria.  Just across the border and about two hours away by train, Graz is by European standards a small city, which means it’s fairly big by Canadian standards.  At first I was worried that the two days we had allotted to spend there would be too much time and that we’d be bored.  Turns out though that Graz is a pretty cool place and there were plenty of things to do to keep us occupied.  We checked out the Glockenspielplatz, Schloss Eggenburg, and ate schnitzel, among other German sounding activities, and tried a traditional Austrian dessert called Germknödel which is somewhere between a doughnut and a dinner bun.  We also took in a tour of the Styrian Armoury which houses the largest collection of medieval weapons and armour in the world.  All the different rulers of the region from medieval lords to Napoleon have taken from and added to the cache of steel and guns making the visit a fascinating history lesson in itself.  As if that wasn’t cool enough, everything is original from the 16^th century, including the graffiti on the bathroom door which our guide deemed too crass to be repeated in public.   Most of our time in Graz, however, was spent just walking around and enjoying the snowfall which gave the city an idyllic wintery look.

Now, Europe in February definitely has its pros and cons.  On the one hand, there aren't huge crowds everywhere, you have virtually everything to yourself and for usually about half the price as in the summer, and if every city looked like Graz does in the winter it would be worth putting up with a bit of snow and cool temperatures.  But unfortunately they don’t and we learned first hand why this is the “off-season” while in Bratislava.

Bratislava's main square.
They have odd statues like this all over the city

I was frequently reminded of the movie Eurotrip while we were in the Slovakian capital.  There’s a scene where they accidently end up in Bratislava instead of their intended Berlin.  While they walk around the deserted streets which are made to resemble something like Chernobyl, a man rides up on a bike and says, “Good thing you came in summer, in winter…it can get a little bleak.”  We were definitely there in the winter, and while the city was nowhere near as rundown as the movie shows it was a little depressing.  It was bitterly cold and very windy so walking around and generally exploring wasn’t much fun.  Come 4:30pm when it was dark out there was no one on the streets and even most of the restaurants were closed.  Also, the idea of spreading sand or salt to de-ice sidewalks apparently hasn’t made it to Slovakia yet because the whole city was a skating rink.  We might as well have had defenders hurling objects at us as we walked up the steep slope to the castle because the ice made it just as dangerous.  So while I’m sure Bratislava is a very nice city when weather permits, it was all too clear to us why no one else was there in February.

Budapest, meanwhile, was a different story.  Of course, I was in Budapest in November with Julian (see post “Hitch hiking to Budapest”), but we were really only there for one day which, as you can imagine with an ancient city with 3 million people, is  not long enough.  The off-season blues that we experienced in Bratislava seemed a distant memory as soon as we arrived in Hungary.   It was warm, the sun was shining, and it was anything but deserted.  As to be expected with a city of this calibre, there’s never a dull moment in Budapest.  We spent two nights and three full days in the city trying to take in as much as possible, all the while staying at what I’m convinced is the best hostel in world (Maverick City Lodge if you ever go there).  Budapest also has some of the coolest bars around so there's never any shortage of things to do.  In total we must have walked back and forth across the city a half-dozen times and yet it never got boring.  I think I mentioned in my previous post on Budapest that every building is a sight in itself and no two are the same.  For our entire time there I walked around staring up at the buildings as if it was my first time in any city, let alone my second stint in Budapest.  It really is an incredible city and it seems the more time I spend there, the more I want to stay.  Eventually though, it was time to move on.

The Royal Palace with the famous Chain Bridge in Budapest

 

We had spent about a half a day trying to figure out how to get to Belgrade, which would be our last city and where Florentia was going to fly out of on her way back home to Athens.  We had initially planned to take a night train but they wouldn’t sell us tickets for the time we wanted and, frustratingly, wouldn’t explain why.  Nonetheless, after some sleuthing we were eventually able to get an overnight bus.  That’s when I had one of those moments that you get every once in a while when you find yourself in a peculiar place.  One of those moments where you stop and take things in.  Its 11:00pm, I’m on the outskirts of Budapest waiting for an overnight bus to Belgrade with two friends from Germany and Greece.  This is exactly where I want to be. 

View from the top of St. Stephan's Basilica with the Hungarian parliament buildings in the background. 

Our full-to-capacity overnight bus turned out to not be as bad as we were anticipating, although it still wasn’t as comfortable as the train would have been, and we arrived in Belgrade, Serbia bleary eyed at about 4:30am.  We then took a cab straight to our hostel where we had probably the weirdest experience of the entire trip.  We had already agreed to pay the driver 10 euros which we figured was probably way more than it should be as Serbia has a different, far less valuable currency, but at this point we were tired and didn’t really care.  Anyway, as we got out at our destination and collected our bags, Marcel paid the cab driver who took the 10 euros and literally started laughing and rubbing the money all over his face.  Welcome to Serbia…

Later that day, after some much needed sleep, we went to check things out.  Our initial impressions of the city were not all that great.  Despite sleeping for most of the morning I don’t think we were 100% there and into it.  We didn’t really know our way around and I actually led us in the complete wrong direction for at least an hour while trying to find the train station, which is very uncharacteristic of me by the way.  All I saw of the city that day were the cold, rundown, communist housing blocks and gypsy kids running around begging.  However, the next day was a different story.  We had great weather, took a free walking tour, and got to see the city in a completely different light which made all the difference.  Turns out, Belgrade is quite a nice place and despite all of the warnings we got, Serbian’s are generally nice people.

Belgrade looking anything but bleak.

Finally, the trip came to the day we were dreading; when we would have to say goodbye.  Although Marcel and I still had a 10 hour train ride back to Ljubljana, Florentia was flying home and it was the symbolic end to our trip and to our time together.   We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few months so parting ways was definitely tough, especially because I don’t know when, or if, I’ll see either of them again.  Worst case scenario though I’ll just have to go to Germany and Greece.  Not so bad.     

    

          

        

The Getaway- Probably the most stressful sequence of events in my life.

With ten minutes to go before my train was supposed to leave for Casablanca's Mohammed V Airport from the central Casa Voyageurs station, there was still a different train parked at the platform and no sign of mine.  It was 3:50 am which is early enough, let alone when you've only had three hours of sleep.   With time winding down I began to get a little nervous. The next train wouldn't be for more than two hours so I needed to be on this one in order to catch my 7:30 flight to Paris, en route back to Ljubljana.  Eventually, with just a couple minutes to spare an announcement came over the PA, first in Arabic and then in French, saying that the train to the airport was departing from platform one.  I was on platform two.  I immediately got that "oh shit" feeling and started running down the steps, underneath the tracks, and up the other side.  Just as I came to the top of the steps the official was closing all the doors on the running train.  I frantically asked him if it was the train to the airport and either he didn't say anything or I just didn't hear him but he appeared to give a thumbs up.  Without hesitation I jumped on board and felt the closing doors squeeze my backpack as I narrowly made it on.

But before I could even begin to feel relaxed that I had made it, I heard someone yell "No!" and a guy came running over and stared at me through the window on the door.  He was a young guy with a thick beard and a large backpack and apparently he was going to the airport too because he screamed through the glass that I was on the wrong train.  At the same time, he was desperately trying to get the attention of the official on the platform and I began to pound on the "Door Open" button as if I could will the door to open with a little force.  But it was all no to avail and in a matter of seconds we started pulling away, and in the opposite direction of the airport.  The gentle rocking of the train under my feet felt more like an earthquake and my already elevated heart rate began increasing along with the speed of the train.  The guy on the platform just stood there staring at me, mouth open with his hands in the air in a helpless, almost apologetic kind of way.  Judging by the look on his face, my own expression must have been somewhere between "Is this really happening?" and "just got punched in the stomach."  Slowly, the lights of the station faded away and I was overcome with the darkness of the unknown, and the uncertainty of what lie ahead.

At this point my mind was racing at warp speed.  'Its almost four o'clock in the morning and its pitch black, I'm on a train heading in the wrong direction to who knows where and for who knows how long'.  Time was ticking, and of course my initial thought was that I was not gonna make my flight.  But through all this noise in my head came the sound of laughter.  I looked into the compartment to see two girls in the same car, probably the only other people on the whole train.  They were busy taking pictures of each other in funny poses and giggling away, completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation.  I interrupted them to ask if the train was going to the airport, I figured it wouldn't hurt to double check.  Sure enough though they both said no with a little bit of a laugh and looked at me like I was crazy.  They then went back to taking pictures of each other and I was left to torture myself by playing out different scenarios in my head.

Thankfully, the train came to a stop at a station about 15 minutes later, rather than two hours later, and I, along with the two girls, got off.  It was just a tiny station somewhere on the outskirts of Casablanca.  There were no street lights and definitely no traffic and since it was just after four in the morning there was hardly anyone there except for a few people in the lobby. There was a security guard who was dressed as though he was on an Arctic expedition despite the fact that it was at least 10 degrees outside.  Apparently noticing I had no idea what to do, one of the girls from the train offered to call a taxi for me but after several attempts she could not convince anyone to come all the way out to the station.  The only other option was the lone taxi who had been coming back and forth to pick people up.  After some negotiating, she was able to get him to agree to take me to the airport for 250 dirhams.  Of course, I had spent the last of my dirhams on the train ticket and had only 20 euros (200dh) left, but I'd deal with later.  As I walked towards the lights of the cab through the dark parking lot I realized another problem.  It was a red "Petit Taxi" meaning it was only allowed within the city and not to the airport.  Just when I thought it was clear sailing, there was something else I had to worry about.  Is this guy really gonna break the rules for me?  As it turns out...no, no he's not.

We drove around through dark deserted streets for some time, picking up and dropping off other passengers along the way, until we eventually pulled up beside a stand of 'Grand Taxis', the ones that are used for bigger distances including the airport.  My driver got out and negotiated some more before coming back and literally pushing me out of the passenger seat.  I was to go with one of the other drivers from here.  Now, I wouldn't have minded this except he wanted to be paid in addition to the 250dh I was to pay this other guy which of course, isn't what we had agreed on.  Realistically though, it was almost 5:00am, I had no idea where I was, time was ticking, and I was surrounded by some obviously unscrupulous taxi drivers; paying this guy extra would not be negotiable.  They were more than happy to exchange my euros into dirhams so I could pay my driver, but that still left me without enough money to pay the next leg to the airport.

So the new driver began taking me around to different banks, trying to find one that would take my card.  It became a routine; he pulls up at a bank, I get out and run to the ATM, and he yells at me in French with his incredibly gravelly voice and honks the horn because apparently that makes ATM's run faster.  Finally, I was able to get some money and we sped off to the airport, although I never really relaxed until I sat down in my seat on the plane (which had been bumped to First Class by the way, the only good thing to happen to me all day).  As I polished off my delicious breakfast and dozed off in my comfy seat I had no idea that the most stressful part of my day was actually still to come.

We landed at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport at 10:30, giving me two hours to spare before my flight to Ljubljana. de Gaulle airport is MASSIVE and it took a long time to go through passport control, multiple security checks, and take the bus to the right terminal, but I wasn't worried because I knew I still had about an hour to kill.  But as I was making my way past the "A" gates of the terminal en route to my "C39" an announcement came on overhead calling certain people to their gates.  Given the experiences I had already had that morning, I knew right away that my name was for some reason going to be included on this list.  Sure enough, "Mitchell Norstrom please proceed immediately to your gate," came over loud and clear.  As it was an hour ahead of boarding I wasn't quite sure why, I thought maybe I was gonna get bumped to first class again.  Anyway, I picked up the pace and hurried to my gate.

As I walked up, there was a guy standing there who was visibly anxious.  He asked me if I was Mitchell Norstrom going to Ljubljana, followed up with  "Come on, hurry up!"  He started off at a run towards to door to the tarmac and I was right behind him.  Just as we got to within an arms reach a guy on the other side pulls the sliding door shut, and locks it, staring at both of us and shaking his head.  The guy I was with turned to me and said, "Sorry sir, boarding has closed."  To which I replied, "What?"

I was so surprised I literally forgot to breathe for a few moments.  It felt like I had had the wind knocked out of me.  I looked up at the screen above the door and noted the boarding time flashing in red and yellow, it finally dawned on me that it was already 12:30, and that the clock on my phone, the only clock I had looked at until this point, was still stuck an hour behind on Moroccan time.  I was only interrupted from my confused daze by the airport attendant saying, "Sir, you're not getting on that plane.  Do you understand?"   I stood there not quite sure what to say for what seemed like an eternity.  Eventually, and in reality probably only a few seconds later , a girl standing behind the desk got a brief phone call and said, "Okay we're good."  She then hurriedly scanned my passport and opened the door.  "Go now! Run!"

To make matters worse, as I was running out to the plane, I looked up into the piercing gaze of the pilot sitting in the cockpit.  I then had to be that guy that walks on to the plane late and everyone knows he's the reason for the hold up.  They probably thought I had just spent too much time shopping at the Duty Free.  But little did they know what I had already been through.                            

Running Away From Christmas

Over the course of my time in Slovenia the moments of having that gut wrenching homesick feeling have been remarkably non-existent.  Sure I’ve missed things about home; my friends and family, the simplicity of knowing where everything is and how to get it, and Kraft Dinner, just to name a few.  But not once have I wished I was home, let alone ever entertained the thought of giving up this incredible experience of living in Ljubljana in favour of the aforementioned niceties.  However, even before I set out on this endeavour I knew that if there was ever going to be one time where I felt that longing for home and the familiar it would likely be at Christmas.  I had images in my head of calling home on Christmas day while sitting alone in my cold, bare cubicle of an apartment, all of my friends having already travelled the short distances to their homes while I’m left here on the opposite side of the world from mine.  So with this horrible scenario in mind, I set out to avoid it from happening.  I was gonna go somewhere so exotic and different that turkey dinner and presents would be the last thing on my mind.  As it turned out, I found that place and it was Morocco.

It’s not as though I just threw a dart at the map and decided to go wherever it landed (although that probably would have made for a better story), there was some logic behind my decision.  I know a few people who have been to Morocco before and all of them had great things to say about it, so I’ve been interested in visiting the country for a while.  I also wanted to go somewhere warm but not so much because the Slovenian winter is so unbearably cold (because it’s not) but because spending Christmas with a view of sun and palm trees is just about as far as you can get from the snow and gloom of December back home.  So I booked myself a flight and a space on an 11 day tour and almost before I knew it I was jetting off to spend my holidays in the ‘Orient’.

A man walks outside a mosque wearing the traditional Moroccan Jalaba.

There are many words one could use to describe Morocco but perhaps the most accurate of them all is ‘enchanting’.  The whole country is a myriad of vibrant sights, sounds, smells, and colours which together are all an assault on the senses but at the same time and in some unexplainable manner leave you wanting more.  Even the names of the cities, like Marrakech, Fes, or Ourzazate, sound like they've been ripped out of the pages of some tale of adventure in far off lands and have an allure to them as captivating as a mirage in the Sahara.  My first destination, Casablanca, was of course no exception.  

Almost immediately after arriving there was an undeniable sense that I was somewhere different; different than my home in Canada, different than my adopted home in Slovenia, different even than my former home in Kuwait.  All that was required to find a taxi to my hotel, for example, was to simply walk down the street and let them come to me, which they did in droves.  When I didn’t like the quoted price I just had to threaten to go with another taxi and suddenly the price was about 70% lower.  In a way, this exchange with the cab driver in my first minutes in the country was indicative of everyday life in Morocco, where everything is negotiable.  After agreeing on a price I piled into the 1970 something Peugeot, a “Petit Taxi” as they are called, and went along for the ride.  Now I’ve had some interesting experiences on roads in different countries, but none of them quite compared to that first drive in Casablanca.  My driver wove around obstacles on the road, some visible some obviously in his head, at different points he would floor the gas and slam on the breaks, all the while speeding through intersections without so much as glancing at the traffic lights.  As Youseff, one of the guides, later explained, “Traffic lights in Casablanca are just decorations.”

Hides are hand dyed in these pools in Fes just like they've
 done for hundreds of years.

From Casablanca we continued on to Fes.  Famous for its medina, or old town, and leather industry which seemingly runs in the same fashion it did when the old town was young.  You can still see men working away in their stalls treating the hides and scraping off the fur with blades by hand.  Then the tanned hides are loaded onto the backs of donkeys to be transported through the maze of alleyways and passages that make up the medina.  The clamour of everyday life engulfs the entire place, but the words, “belek, belek!” stand out.  Roughly translated, they mean get out of the way.  Tanners frequently yell them out as they guide their caravans of donkeys through the city to hand off the hides to be dyed.  The dyeing station is a burst of colour in an otherwise monotonous place.  There are dozens of small pools and each is filled with a different vividly coloured natural dye.  However, you can only enjoy the magnificent site if you can get past the revolting smell.  A combination of the ingredients in some of the dyes and fat residues left on the hides make for a pungent odour which can be hard to take.  But as one local assured me, “thank God you came in winter, because in summer it can be quite unbearable.” 

Our guide, Rachid, takes a walk amongst the rolling sand dunes
of the Sahara.

After Fes we carried on south over the Middle Atlas mountain range into the Sahara.  Of course, there really is only one way to truly experience the desert; by camel.  Riding on a camel watching the last rays of the orange sunset dip below the horizon in front of the sea of cascading sand dunes is something I will not soon forget.  Unfortunately, that moment couldn’t last forever and quite soon the warmth from the last glimmer of the sun was replaced by the biting cold of the desert night.

After the night in the desert the scenery only grew in spectacle.  From the rocky outcrops of the imposing Todra Gorge to travelling back in time through the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs and finally through the snow-capped peaks of the High Atlas range.  It was some of the most contrasting yet beautiful landscape I have ever seen.  Arid desert and lifeless mountains are only broken up by the infrequent oases which seemingly support all life in the region.  The peace and serenity was a far cry from our final destination in Marrakech.

The fortified village, or Ksar, of Ait Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular backdrop for movies such as The Mummy, Gladiator, and Prince of Persia.

Marrakech is the quintessential Middle Eastern city, or at least, its everything you imagine the Middle East to be.  The main square, Djema el-fna, is a dizzying din of snake charmers, musicians, animals, food stalls, and millions of people. It’s enough to make your head spin and it’s the type of place that based on all of my past experiences I should hate.  I hate crowds, I don’t like it when people try and put their monkey on my shoulder, and I definitely do not like the chaos of the entire scene, yet for some strange reason I couldn’t get enough of it.  I’d slowly make my way around the square and into the surrounding souks and occasionally stop to haggle with some shop keeper over some item or try to explain to him that, no, I don’t need that huge carpet, even if it is for a "good price for you, my friend."  Marrakech was like nowhere else I’ve ever been before and no matter how hard I try to describe it, I will never be able to do it justice.

Sunset over part of the souks of Marrakech.  This is the time when the whole place comes alive and the main square becomes full of food vendors.

So, my trip to Morocco had come and gone and with nothing but a call home and the odd seasonal greeting, so had Christmas.  Come Christmas day I wasn’t sitting in my cold apartment all by myself, and I definitely wasn’t missing home, there was too much to do and see to even think about that.  At first I kind of thought I would go to Morocco to run away from Christmas.  I thought it would be easier to be away from home if there wasn't any Christmas at all.  But what I realized as I made my way through successive medinas, deserts, and kasbahs, was that I really wasn’t running away from anything.  I was running towards adventure and excitement and the unknown.  And what's really exciting, is that over the next few months I'm going to have a lot more running to do.