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Alright, back to more informative (but slightly less awesome) blog entries. Liz here, reporting from surprisingly hot Transylvania... We just stepped off the train, so please forgive my incoherence. A lot has happened in the past few days, so here goes.
We parted ways with the lovely English girls we were staying with in our guesthouse in Dubrovnik, after an amazing three island cruise (advertised as "fish picnic"... thought that was funny) and made our way up through Croatia into Bosnia. The bus ride was pretty sobering... we saw entire villages that had been abadoned, buildings completely burnt out, and more machine gun spray than I really want to think about. It was pretty alarming, especially against the scenic backdrop. Anyway, after about 7 hours of that, we arrived in Sarajevo where we were met by a crazy old lady, arranged by the owner of our previous guesthouse. She took us to her "sister's" house, where we were greeted by a huge, moley lady who, when she wasn't pouring coffee down our throats and calling us "my Bambini!!!" (she thought she was Italian), she was trying to swindle us at every opportunity. We ended up sleeping on sofa beds in her living room... The whole thing was pretty bizarre.
Sarajevo itself was pretty interesting, but we only stayed for a day. Despite all of the reconstruction that's already taken place, there's still a lot of damage. The areas of pavement where people were killed by shelling are filled in with red concrete, called Sarajevo Roses, and they're all over. We didn't really have much of a chance to see a lot of the city, but we wandered around the old town and hung out in the Turkish quarter where we comforted ourselves with Iskender Kebap.
Anyway, after Sarajevo we took a filthy and hot bus to Serbia, where we set up camp in Belgrade for a few days. There are very few hostels (someone told us they were illegal in Serbia... not too sure) so we ended up in a converted apartment suite with some other backpackers, academics from a nearby conference, and a black cat, to which I became inexplicably allergic the moment I stepped onto our next overnight train (fun). The hostel was a little weird and less than sanitary, but laid back, so we just chilled out for a few days seeing parks and museums. You may be shocked to hear this, but Pia and I actually VOLLUNTARILY went to a war museum, something we would normally have absolutely no interest in. What we really wanted to get was information on more recent conflicts (ie. war with Bosnia), but those exhibits were mostly closed (ass hats!!) so we ended up being bored for an hour by extremely old "bits of war" as Pia called them.
After that, we boarded an overnight train to... dum dum dum.... TRANSYLVANIA!!!!! Yes, we ARE just here to see Dracula's castle. So shoot us. It's Pia's birthday this week, so ve can do vhatever touristy and evil things ve vant. Mwa. ha. ha.
Sorry, really sorry... But Pia's big 2-1 IS a-comin, in exactly 2 days, actually (that's MAY 31 people) so you all had better be EXTRA cyber-nice and send her ecards, containing money for her to share with me.
Right-o, I'm off. Oh! We (finally) got some more pictures up on the photo-spot. I think we're missing a big chunk from Greece, so we'll try to get that sorted out soon. Anyway, take a peek. See ruins! And tans! And boats!
photos.yahoo.com/eurolizandpia
Peace,
Liz
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anonymous
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Happy Birthday-Pia
Have a great day wherever you are. Dad - gt