I left at 5:50 on Friday with the only bus straight to Bucharest from Varna. But of course the bus was 30 minutes late to start. And we stopped every 30 minutes for gas. And at the last town before the border our bus broke down. We sat on a busy road for about an hour waiting for our bus to start. When we finally got it started we picked up so many people that the bus was now completely full. I must have fell asleep or was so unimpressed by the bus station that I failed to see that it [View Full Entry]

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When in Bulgaria everyone was telling me not to trust public transport, and that the best way to get around the country was by hitchhiking. But being that I knew no Bulgarian and all of my trains were paid for, I decided to take the best train in the country—the express train to Varna. If you don’t know, Varna is a beach town on the edge of the Black Sea and Bulgaria’s third largest city. When staying with Jordan he mentioned that Varna would be a much better capitol because it is cleaner, nicer and the people are better. After this [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Sofia and was about to try couchsurfing again. I originally had a host from Australia—him and his family—but they decided to take off for the weekend, so I almost was without a place, but luckily I posted an emergency couch request to the Sofia network and was able to find a host. Her name was Radina and she was a 19 yr. old Bulgarian girl, who’d only just began to live in Bulgaria. She was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, but her family was from Bulgaria and her grandparents still lived in Sofia. From what [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Belgrade only to find one of the ugliest and dirty cities I had ever seen. The train ride into Belgrade gives you an idea about how dirty it is. Gypsies occupy the area near the train tracks and live in shanties build with ply board, plastic tarps and used tires. Little kids walk around on the roofs of these places and just stare into the train windows, like they have never seen such a thing before. I stepped off the train and was instantly attacked by bugs I'd never seen before and noticed not a word was wrote [View Full Entry]

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Let's see, a lot has happened and I have been slipping on this travel blog for some time, so I hope I remember all the important things. Herelić (I think this is how it is spelled): this is a giant outdoor market. And not like farmers market, this is Goodwill or Value Village of Croatia. You have to take a tram about 20 minutes from the center, towards Novi Zagreb (the market used to be by Dugave, but they decided to move it for some reason). Tram line 6, in case you ever go. You get off right after you pass [View Full Entry]

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Because Ivana and I will not see each other on my birthday she decided to treat me to a day in Graz as my present. I knew very little about Austria, but she had been to Graz a few times and knew the city well enough to show me around without getting lost. The bus took us through the Croatian, Slovenian and Austrian country side, and was really a beautiful bus ride. Unfortunately the bus left at 6 am and we had managed to get no sleep the night before, so I could hardly hold my head up to the view. [View Full Entry]

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After meeting Ivana at the bus station we returned home and shortly after I passed out. For the first few nights I had trouble sleeping at nights and the mid-afternoon 4 hour naps didn't help. When I was awake Ivana and I were walking around Dugave, trying to get familiar with all of the area. It is in Novi (new) Zagreb which isn't all that new, but was built about 30 years during the communistic times of Yugoslavia. So all the buildings show "Equal Opportunity" in the way they are made. It is an interesting contrast from the things we are [View Full Entry]

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The travel Gods saw my ego growing. He is getting full of himself, they said. And it’s true. I said, “It’s easy, a piece of cake, nothing to worry about, smooth as butter.” They had to do something to ground me. First order of action: make his flight experience hell! While checking in for my flight the receptionist told me all flights to Newark were delayed, so I might have to switch connecting flights to Dublin. She told me just to keep in touch with the boarding desk. Between my flight from Seattle to Newark and Newark to Dublin I had [View Full Entry]

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I left for Paris and went to London. Now I can say I've been down and out in both Paris and London. Though I guess it wasn't so bad...I just had to watch my money spending really carefully. My first night was going to be my last night in a hostel. I had seen a lot of London and was kind of tired of traveling around by the end of my 3rd month, so when I got to the hostel I planned on just laying around for awhile and doing the tourist things later. Plus I had five days to see [View Full Entry]

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I spent nearly four weeks in Paris. From the 17th of November till the 10th of December. And I stayed five different places while being there. Once at Thierry's mother's house, this was my first week. I ran through Paris and Versailles, seeing most of the big things. Basically I became accustomed to Paris. Then I stayed at Helene's house, my second week. The week I was with Helene was the week I started working on the Champs-Elysee, unfortunately the job didn't work out for several reasons, but after a four hour interview and seven hour second day I only gained [View Full Entry]

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