Blogs from West, Serbia, Europe - page 4

Budicek 4/30, dobalenie a smer bus zastavka. Bus do Galanty bol poloprazdny, vlak smer Nove Zamky taktiez nie moc plny. Tesil som sa na novy vozen ale bohuzial poslali staru supravu kde bolo uplne minimum miesta na nohy, este,ze na mojej stvorsedacke nik iny nesedel. Sprievodca mal problem nacitat moj etiket v mobile, to sa mi uz stalo druhy krat, budem musiet vymenit za novsi typ s nepopraskanym displejom. Dakych 5.min sa to snazil nacitat ale ani bohovy, tak nakoniec len mavol rukou a islo sa dalej. Stanicu v Novych Zamkoch zacali rekonstruovat, resp jedno nastupiste. Ked to dokoncia hned to tam bude krajsie. Vlak smer Budapest mal meskanie 10.min, cestou do budapesti sme nabrali dalsie minuty,takze nakoniec sme dorazili s cca 25.min meskanim. To mi trochu skomlikovali plany v budapesti. Mal som v plane odlovit ... read more

Airline ticket prices are decided by a group of monkeys throwing chunks of smooshed up banana at a wall full of numbers. If any of those chunks stick to the ceiling, the price also includes an hourly variation of plus or minus $300. That’s the only explanation I can give for this situation - A one-way ticket from Bangkok to Belgrade is more expensive than: a one-way ticket from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, a one-way ticket from Bangkok to Tokyo and a roundtrip ticket from Tokyo to Belgrade. Yes, all of that combined is cheaper than the one-way from Bangkok to Belgrade. Without hesitation, we booked ourselves into that 45-hour journey that spanned five airports and zigzagged over Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Tokyo to Abu Dhabi to Belgrade. Since ... read more

This day just got worse and worse, and then it got better. My hotel is to thank, in large measure, for the improvement of my mood. I will cop to waking up with a heavy heart - the first thing I did was look at the pictures from graduation last night at UGA, and it made me sad that I couldn't be there. And there were a TON of pictures posted. I don't know why, but I couldn't get back to sleep after that. My alarm was set for 6:45, but I woke up around 4:50. Maybe anticipation and sadness mixed together. Whatever it was, I took a cab from my hotel around 7 AM, and I was on a train around 7:30. My hotel concierge fellow wouldn't mail my post cards, telling me that there ... read more

A wonderful end to a wonderful Dialogue of Civilizations. That is all I have to say. A quick run-through of my day: Woke up in time for a late breakfast, blogged and sent some emails, relaxed, went for a run, went to the lake, packed, got dinner, had celebratory drinks, bed. I must say, Dialogue, as cool as it sounds when you're selling it on tour or talking to friends and family about it, is massively underrated. This was potentially one of the best experiences of my life, and definitely the best of my college career. The people I met are amazing, funny, smart, diverse, and active in the community. I have no doubt that I will keep in contact with some of them for at least the rest of college, if not beyond. However, more ... read more

And with that, the meat of this Dialogue is all but gone. The second disputation was this morning, this time with my team taking part as judges. It was truly a spectacularly fought debate, especially given that I -- and I know I'm not alone -- expected it to be one-sided, given who the debating teams were. In fact, after deliberating for nearly half an hour, we ended up awarding the disputation to the team that we had expected to be crushed. Credit to them. In the afternoon, we headed over to the fortress, where we explored the military museum. It was relatively interesting; starting back in the ancient era with simple spears, and ranging up to the Balkan Wars. It was quite thorough in its coverage of weaponry and explanations of important battles and fighting ... read more