Darvina
Darvin & Irena Knorr Joined: October 10th 2008
Logged in: February 21st 2009
Logged in: February 21st 2009
Travel Blog Posts
Ukraine
By Irena: After making our way through parts of Ukraine and Poland, Darvin and I officially feel like we have had a good sampling of Eastern Europe. The family visits were really good. Surprising at times, very educational, emotional, and heartwarming too. It was a LONG journey from Croatia to Ukraine, opting for the long train ride over a flight to save some cash. Rather than trying to do the 32 hour train journey in one shot, we opted to spend one night in Budapest, which was a great decision. It was a really beautiful city with far too much to see in just one day - but we managed to get around, walk through the old Jewish district, see the Millennium Monument and walk the grounds of the very impressive Buda Castle. The highlight of ... read more
Seaside Felines
Darvin Wrote: Considering we had not expected to even visit two of the three former Yugoslavian states that we did, this most recent part of our journey has been both enjoyable and also very sobering. When we were looking to try and find our way from Greece to Croatia the only cheap way to go was to fly into Belgrade, the capitol of Serbia (and at one time the capitol of the former Yugoslavian Federation), and then make our way by bus through Sarajevo, the capitol of Bosnia-Herzegovina, finally arriving to the town of Split in Croatia. The scars of the war that broke out in this area from 1991-1995, and then the 1999 Kosovo conflict in Serbia are all still very easy to see and for the most part what I have gathered is that ... read more
Well Earned Beers
Irena Wrote: Ahhh Greece... We just left yesterday after spending 2 full weeks there. Parts of it felt much different than my first experience there 5 years ago. I don't know if I hadn't noticed it before, but some places felt so touristy, it almost reminded me of a European Mexico. The restaurant owners, tour operators and sales people were so aggressive at times! Particularly in Athens. We could not walk down a street without the restaurant owners coming up to us, handing us their menus and telling us that the food was "very good, very cheap, you must sit". The food was great at first, and we never got tired of Greek Salads. i will miss them dearly. But, even souvlaki gets tiring after 2 weeks. Unless it is accompanied by heaps of tzatziki. As ... read more
My Irena
By Darvin: We arrived in Lisbon late Sunday night and caught a cab directly to our residencio (budget hotel) located near the downtown center of Lisbon. Right away I noticed that compared to Barcelona and Madrid the buildings in Lisbon were much more run down, the streets had more garbage on them, were smellier and there was more graffiti. The history of Portugal is again one of very rough times until only recently but the old historic area of Lisbon did not wear it very well. The metro was very easy to use however, and once we got out and did some exploring the character of this capital of Portugal began to show. We took a 3 hour walking tour on our second day there and our guide was awesome. She showed us many really interesting ... read more
Irena, Darvin and James (Shadow Fx)
I knew that going from Ibiza to BOOM was going to be intense, but as it turns out the only real hardship was simply getting from the airport to the festival. Before we left Ibiza, and once we arrived in Madrid and found out that no-one was at the airport to shuttle us the 5 hour drive to the festival site in Portugal, I tried numerous times to sort out our transportation (thank you Nilza for all your effort!!), but in the end we were on our own. At first I thought that getting to BOOM from Madrid on our own was going to be much harder, but Irena stepped up and together we simply sorted out an overnight train to a town (Castelo Branco) very close to the festival, and from there we caught a ... read more
A Sunny Start
Leaving Barcelona was not easy but once our close friends Rusty and Ada arrived, the idea of traveling with them to join a whole crew of our other friends on the world infamous ultimate Spanish island of night clubbing, Ibiza, made heading off to our next stop much more exciting. Of course once we arrived, Ada's suitcase was missing (Easyjet said they had no idea of knowing where it was or when it would arrive, wtf?!??!?), but after a 40 min wait it arrived on the next flight which was a huge relief. The other odd thing about our flight was all the families on board. I did not realize that Ibiza and the surrounding islands are also a huge family holiday destination for Europeans, and not just a night cluber's heaven. That being said the ... read more
Barcelona
Although this is our first city in Europe to have visited on our trip we could not have asked for a more perfect beginning to our time away from home. Four nights in the Hotel Dante, hours and hours each day of sightseeing world heritage sites, endless supply of gelato, a dip in the Mediterranean, consistent hot sunny weather and way too many cool shops and cafes to check out all made for a whirlwind but thoroughly enjoyable stay. It has been an intensely grounding experience to walk through ancient old narrow streets and place our hands on stones that have seen so many lifespans worth of history. It is incredible how something you have never experienced can bring you into the present such as the sound of a violin and cello echoing down the corridors ... read more
