Um, what? I guess this is the part where I say something about how these past 10 weeks have changed my life, blah blah blah...you know the drill. It's the part where I close this chapter of my life and hightail it back to the States, where I belong. Yes, the good ole US of A: land of the free and home to McDonald's. While my time here in Europe has certainly opened my eyes to the simple relativity of human existence (as well as my lungs to the outrageous amount of second-hand smoke...one thing I learned about Europeans is that [View Full Entry]

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I'll have to admit that I knew embarrassingly little about Sarajevo before I came -- all I knew about it was that it's the capital of one of the longest country names I had the misfortune to memorize in geography class, and that its claim to fame (in my mind, mind you :P) was being the city that was bombed to smithereens in the recent Bosnian conflict. The moment I arrived at the bus station, I instantly learned a couple of important things: 1) The Lukavica bus station is a decrepit, sorry-for-an-excuse bus depot/hovel which serves as the secondary international bus [View Full Entry]

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I've never had hot chocolate quite like this. I stared down into my cup, not exactly sure whether to be amused or bemused. Both seemed strangely appropriate. Isn't hot chocolate supposed to be drunk? Not...eaten? I stirred up a spoonful of the fragrant concoction, noting how it refused to spill over the sides of my spoon...like proper liquids were supposed to do. Or so I thought. We took our breakfast at the Podgorica central bus station -- adjacent to the train station where we were dropped off -- where I was able to sample a traditional burek with sir and meso [View Full Entry]

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A full day of playing tour guide to my mother was a bit more challenging than I expected. In truth, it was something I should have seen coming, judging from the way she gave a decidedly unladylike snort when I told her that Belgrade has been called "The New York City of the Balkans." I think she's been spoiled by Athens, so nothing can compare now, naturally :P. We looped around the Kalemegdan and strolled down the Knez Milhailkova, where we had lunch at a little tavern tucked away underground. Food was great! Yum, my stomach remembers that lunch fondly, lol.Cevapi [View Full Entry]

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Well, I think it's safe to say that this and my last birthday do have something in common: they both involved confusing the hell and beating the crap out of my body. lol...I do admit I'm prone to exaggeration, but seriously...I'm starting to worry that I'm beginning to develop a taste for pushing my body to the limit when the clock strikes 15:38 :P Last year it was this spur-of-the-moment 20+ hour drive through Oklahoma, a crack-y attempt to return to my roots, to reacquaint myself with the part of me I thought I had left behind (why does everything seem [View Full Entry]

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We kicked off the month of April beginning our stay on the Island of Santorini, about an 8-hour ferry ride from Athens. There has been healthy amounts of speculation that the volcano eruption from Santorini from way back when might have had a hand in the sinking of the mythical civilization of Atlantis. Holy crap, are you serious? A volcano on this tiny little speck of something-something that would take maybe a couple hours to drive across? Of course, according to our local guide, this eruption was something pretty fierce: apparently people could hear the eruption 3 separate times (i.e. [View Full Entry]

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Ever wonder where we got the English word "gymnasium" from? I know I have...n't. (lol) Perhaps it wasn't a shock that we borrowed the word from the Ancient Greeks, but what surprised the hell out of me was that it meant "place to be naked." As in bare-bottomed, with all your bits and pieces on display for public inspection. Er? I think we have another English equivalent to that though...it's more commonly referred to as "porn," in my native tongue, lol. Athletes would also slather their naked bodies with healthy amounts of olive oil to imbue their skin with a healthy [View Full Entry]

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I didn't know exactly what today would bring -- the only thing I did know was that I was going to exploit the hell outta my 3-euro 24-hr subway pass. Athens reminded me exactly why I love the subway system. After spending over 6 weeks in the Balkans, coexisting primarily with people who've never been able to leave the country (let alone the Balkan region), I've forgotten what it's like to blend in in a foreign setting. Even though Asians are unusual to come by in Greece, at least there are always those ubiquitous Japanese tourists to help the Greeks acclimate [View Full Entry]

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HOLY CRAP. This is probably the most POORLY planned traveling excursion imaginable. The day before, I was dismayed by the fact that only 1 train leaves for Thessaloniki from Skopje...at 7am. Holy shit. Now, getting up at 7 is nothing to quibble about...it's just the small detail that there was something I had forgotten to pack for this European stint. A watch. A goddamned watch. After a couple of days here, I'd gotten used to not ever knowing what time it was (usually I looked to the position of the sun in the sky for a clue...though this never worked when [View Full Entry]

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While the bus ride to Skopje was pretty uneventful, my quest to find my hostel once I got there was anything but. Gah. One thing I seemed to have forgotten (damn short-term memory, haha) is that taking the bus typically results being dropped off in the middle of nowhere (AKA not exactly in the bus station ^^;;;) at your final destination. I had to take a stab at which stop I was supposed to get off, and once I did, I could only pray that I was in the right city. Haha, such a loser I am! But all is well [View Full Entry]

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