Majorontour

Bashar Al Assad

2010-09-14T08:12:00.001-07:00

By now I know this guys face better than my own mothers. He is everywhere. His image is plastered across the city on posters, billboards, police car windows, windows of homes, even on car sun shields. Dr. Bashar al-Assad is the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, and the son of former President Hafez al-Assad.

Bashar al-Assad was born in Damascus, on 11 September 1965. Initially Bashar had few political aspirations. Hafez al-Assad had been grooming Bashar's older brother, Basil al-Assad, to be the future president.

Instead little Bashar studied ophthalmology at Damascus University 1988 and arrived in London in 1992 to continue his studies (it was here met his wife, Emma, a West Londoner). But fate forced him to leave his studies as he was recalled in 1994 to join the Syrian army after his brother’s death in an automobile accident.

The accident made Bashar his father's new heir apparent. When the elder Assad died in 2000, Bashar was appointed leader of the Baath-Party and the Army and was elected president unopposed after the Majlis Al Sha'ab (Parliament) swiftly voted to lower the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34 (Assad's age when he was elected).

He was expected to bring a more liberal approach to the leadership than his father. In an interview he stated that he saw democracy in Syria as 'a tool to a better life' but then argued that it would take time for democracy to come about and that it could not be rushed. For a while wave of change swept Syria, the so called ‘Damascus Spring’, buzzing with a proliferation of private papers, internet bloggers and public debate not seen in the region for decades. However, more change was held back by the old guard that surrounded Bashar’s father.

Despite being a popular leader few are willing to talk about Bashar referring to him as ‘ the Beloved’ or ‘ the good guy’, revealing the censorship and fear of the secret police that still pervades in Syria. Something many hoped would die alongside Bashar’s father. Facebook, YouTube, Hotmail, Amazon and Wikipedia, (basically my bookmarks toolbar) are still banned in Syria. Syrains’ are pretty savvy to this, especially when it comes to Facebook and just type in a different proxy server and access the banned websites on a daily basis, even in internet cafes, a wink and a nod to the assistant and you can have the proxy server changed. Internet cafes in Syria are essentially Middle Eastern version of speak easy bars in America during the 1920’s. Not even the government can keep people away from Facebook apparently.

Al-Assad has failed to drastically modernize or liberalize the public sector. According to Acram al-Bouni, a Syrian journalist, he has used the reliance of a vast amount of the population upon employment by the state as a means to maintain power. With a large number of people on the state payroll it is less likely resistance movements will form as income from their employment is, “the only thing they have . . . They fear change.”

There is also trouble on the international front, as the United States, European Union, the March 14 Alliance, Israel, and France accuse Assad of logistically supporting militant groups aimed at Israel. These include most political parties other than Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Following the Iraq invasion by coalition forces, Assad has been accused of supporting the Iraqi insurgency. In particular, Assad has been fingered in providing funding, logistics, and training to Iraqi and foreign Muslims to launch attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Regionally Syria is constantly at loggerheads with Israel and Lebanon. Bad luck when they’re your next-door neighbors.

More than anything I feel sorry for Bashar, this softly spoken Syrian man who just wanted to be a Dr but instead got lumped with the job as President in one of the most volatile regions of the world. His favorite film is Pursuit of Happiness for God’s sake. This trumps Kim Jong Il's Gone with the Wind any day.

Check out his website, it's super.

Syrian Scrubs

2010-09-14T08:07:00.001-07:00

After a few weeks of hardcore traveling and a brief delay in Aleppo while I threw up my guts into a Syrian toilet bowl, myself and Steven got ourselves into Damascus. I was sweaty, smelly, disheveled dirty and well rank. I need good scrub and luckily for me the Middle East is famous for it’s bathhouses. A Turkish bath (Turkish: Hamam) is the Turkish variant of a sauna, distinguished by a focus on water, as opposed to steam. The process is similar to that of a sauna, but is more closely related to ancient Greek and ancient roman bathing practices.

I took a taxi (cheaper than buses in Syria, YES) to a Hamam on the edge of town where the taxi driver dropped me off in front of a rug covered door, with no sign or symbol that this might be the Hamam. I tenuously knocked at the door, which was opened by a Syrian woman wearing a swimming costume, to reveal an ornate Ottoman style room with a high wooden beamed ceilings and a fountain in the middle around which woman in towels gossiped, smoked shisha and drank sweet cay. So, the rug on the door was there to prevent the preying eyes of the men outside to catch a glimpse of the spectacle inside. Women enter in chadors and Burkehs only to peel them off seconds later to reveal dyed hair, makeup and silky underwear.

After paying the woman the equivalent of nine English pounds I was shown into a room (known as the warm room) that was heated by a continuous flow of hot, dry air allowing the bather to perspire freely. I then moved into an even hotter room (known as the hot room) before splashing myself with cold water in a little marbled arched stone room.

Then I was ushered into a room to receive a full body wash to be administered by a buxom Syrian mamma dressed in a black chemise. She lay me down on the floor and began to scrub at my skin with a exfoliating mitt, and when I say she scrubbed me I mean she scrub me. I had rolls of dead grey skin peeling off me as she ragged me around through the sheer force of her scrubbing.

Then I was placed on a raised stone slab as Syrian Mamma number two began to give me my ‘massage’, which was more akin to a slab of meat being pounded until it was tender, or perhaps a farmer wringing a chickens neck. After this ordeal I sat in a cool room in my towel, cleaner than I’ve ever been, lobster red, slightly dazed yet oddly relaxed, drinking tea and watching the Syrian woman belly dancing around before they put on their Burkehs and made their way out onto the street. To be honest, that was probably the best nine pounds I’ve ever spent.

Mosque Umayad

2010-09-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

Like I said before, Syria is probably the friendliest rogue state in the world despite the constant warnings that I’d be killed by my friends and family.

Other responses included: A) Where the fuck is Syria B) What the fuck is there in Syria. Here I am to give you the answers you’ve all been waiting for.

SqA) Suidged in-between Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan (bad luck hey)

B)Loads of boss things. To be frank it’s a pretty important place in the history of mankind, in fact the River Euphrates that runs through Syria birthed civilization. You would not be sitting there right now if this river did not pop you out. It also houses two of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world, Aleppo and Damascus and the Mosque Umayyad the most important holy site to Shiite Muslims.

I met a girl in my hostel who was studying her Masters degree in Interfaith dialogue (whatever that is) so I took a trip with her to the mo

sque with full intention of using her as my very own personal tour guide. Before we could enter the Mosque we had to donn some pretty epic robes (left) and remove our shoes in the ‘Putting on Special Clothes Room’ (Syrian English is beautiful), which made me look like a Shit version of Obi One Kenobi.

The Mosque was converted from a Byzantine cathedral (which in turn had occupied the sit of the Temple of Jupiter)in AD705, around which time, under Umayyad rule Damascus had become the capital of the Islamic world and the Caliph (the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah), built what he called “ a mosque the equal of which was never designed by anyone before me or after me’. This isn’t an exaggeration. Inside this ornate mosque lies the supposed resting places of John the Baptists head, (Prophet Yehia to Muslims) and most importantly the Shrine of Hussein, Son of Ali and the grandson of the prophet. The shrine attracts large numbers of Iranian Shiite Muslims, who pour into the room holding the tomb of Hussein, beating their chests in anguish, crying and pushing and shoving to touch the shrine, or video it on their mobile phones. For a Roman Catholic girl, told off for whispering in church or shuffling on the bench, this was a culture shock, but nonetheless a beautiful site.

I couldn’t help but feel I was invading the privacy of these people standing at the back and observing so I slipped out into the sundrenched courtyard in my bare feet to see The Mausoleum of Saladin holds the resting place and grave of the medieval Ayyubid Sultan Saladin, who was best mates with Richard the Lionheart. The mausoleum was rebuilt in 1898 under the patronage of the German Emperor Wilhelm II who financed the repairs after he visited Damascus and found the tomb in a state of disrepair and even gave Saladin a new marble coffin. Wilhelm remains the only Western leader to have donated a gift to a Mosque. He may have started a war in Europe which went on to shape the bloodiest century known to man, but the guy was a long way ahead of building up East-West relations.

Kidnapped by Syrian Hospitality

2010-09-14T05:39:00.002-07:00

If you ever want to scare your family, horrify your friends, and alarm random strangers, here’s an idea: Tell them you’re planning a trip to the Middle East Precise reactions varied, but the general sentiment was identical:

“Aren’t they all terrorists over there?”

“You’ll be kidnapped.”

“Nice knowin’ ya.”

And if you want to discover how off-base their reactions are, you should actually go.

When I began planning my trip and hearing the backlash from my friends I convinced myself that they were just paranoid, and that was their loss. But as my departure date drew closer, I began to notice subtle changes in the way I anticipated the trip. The bombardment of propaganda I had suffered had begun seeping into my subconscious. Rather than losing myself in orgy of excited planning, I became more and more concerned with what I shouldn’t do and who I shouldn’t talk to. Every passerby was a suspect, and each gesture of kindness was a carefully plotted trap.

Avoiding the locals might sound like a simple task, but in the Middle East, where kindness to travelers is one of society’s golden rules, withdrawal requires the utmost vigilance. It also makes you feel like a deviant, if only because hospitality flows so freely.

When a merchant in Aleppo refused to let me pay for sweets and coffee, I was sure the food was poisoned. When a random man in Syria offered to walk a mile in order to show us the way to the bus station, I just knew he was leading us to a secret terrorist den. And when a funiture shop owner invited me for coffee after we merely asked him for directions, well, let’s just say I took note of each sharp object within reach.

But after a few days of such defensive posturing – and no negative incidents – I couldn’t help but wonder: Could it be possible that these people really were just generous? It took a little episode in Damascus, Syria, for me to confirm that the answer was a resounding yes.

After going for a hamman one day I was pretty hungry and decided to grab a Syrian Pizza, ( well it's not really a pizza, it was more of a flat bread with spices and vegetables on top) I stood and chatted to the man making my pizza and another Syrian man in a Hawaiian shirt in who was also waiting for food.

When I came to pay the cook refused to take my money. As I stood there dumbfounded thanking him profusely the man I had been standing next to asked if I’d eat with him, so we took a walk into the Old City eating from our paper plates of steaming olives, peppers, mushrooms and flat bread. It turned out Iyad, had trained as a vet, but decided that he hated animals so bought property near to my hostel which he rented out to tourists, it also turned out that he was wearing his Hawaiian shirt because Ace Ventura was one of his all time favourite films. He was quite a guy.

After our pizza he bought me some refreshing Syrian Dragon fruits to try, then invited me to smoke shisha with him, refusing to let me pay for it or any of the drinks. Amongst other things we talked mainly about his girlfriend issues and Syrian values. For Syrains it is shameful to disrespect a stranger, and it is a golden rule in society to help travellers. This fact was verified when as attempted to pay the bill the waiter refused to let us leave until they had given me a complimentary plate of ripe peaches and watermelon to say thank you for having a beautiful smile.

In the midst of all this generosity and fantastic hospitality I let myself down. As he walked me home to my hostel he took me via a different route to the one we came by, through darkened Souq alley ways and narrow Medieval streets. All I could think to myself was, this was it, this is why he was being so nice, he thinks somethings going to happen, and I began to edgily ask him where we where going to which he replied ‘ I'm not going to do anything to you I’m just walking you home, calm down’.

I checked myself and felt deeply ashamed for being so suspicious. In the West the first thing we are told as children is “ Don’t speak to strangers’. All strangers are out to get you and want to hurt you. Simple as that. In the Middle East strangers are fellow humans, to be looked after and who in turn, will look after you. If travelling has taught me anything it’s that trusting in the kindness of strangers has given me some of the best experiences of my life, now I go purposely out of my way to talk to them.

Turkey - 16th July

2010-09-11T09:49:00.001-07:00

That's right I decided two weeks prior to flying into Turkey that I wanted to travel around the Middle East. I mean, I'd been thinking about a trip like this ever since I visited Albania last year, but the catalyst came when I got in touch with a guy on Couchsurfing who posted an invitation on a hitchhiking forum for anyone who wanted to hitchhike around the Middle East with him. Yes, I met someone on the internet and decided to hitchhike with them. Some people might call this suicidal, rash if you will, however I call it spontaneous. I emailed him back, told him to make room for a little blonde and booked a one way flight to Turkey. Worst came to worst I could shuffle off to Marmaris and have me a beach holiday, maybe pull a Mancunian or two.

The morning of my flight I jumped on the train to Manchester airport from ye old Huyton and bumped into a friend on the carriage and she asked where I was off to, ' erm the Middle East'. She gave me a nervous laugh and then looked out of the window for the entire journey. In retrospect that was probably the most difficult journey of the entire trip.

Just as painful was my first hour in Turkey. When I arrived in Turkey, I was supposed to get a bus from Dalaman airport to Fetiyhe, the town where Steven, 'internet-hitchikeboy',was staying. However by the time the plane landed, the last bus had gone leaving me with two options. A £70 taxi ride or a night on the airport floor. I'm no stranger to airport floors, so the latter seemed the most cost effective solution. So I backed up on myself and tried to reenter the arrivals lounge, my attempt was halted by a burly Turkish guard who said I couldn't reenter the building. Arrivals was off limits, so I went for departures instead. Once again my mission was fruitless. What is Dalaman airport? The White House?

I was getting ready to settle into the bushes for the night, but as a last ditch attempt I approached a Turkish looking lady and asked if she spoke English, hoping to find someway of getting to Fetiyhe. Lady Luck must have been shining down at me as it turns out, Linda, as I later found out her name to be, was from Birmingham ( my Turk-dar is clearly broken) and she was waiting for a ride from a friend who lived in Fetiyhe of all places. I had to wedge myself into a car filled with two men, two little hyperactive children and lovely Linda. After catching a ride with Linda and her Turkish friends, ten minutes into the hour long journey they decided they where hungry and treated me to my very first Turkish pizza at a restaurant ran by their family. I just about squeezed back into the car before they dropped me right at the doorstop of my hostel!

Majorontour in the Middle East

2010-08-02T14:05:00.002-07:00

That's right kiddies, oh yes, Major is once more on tour, this time on the Middle East. I don't make things easy for myself, but you lot don't want to read a blog about me sunning myself in Malaga, you want to hear about me in tricky predicaments, sexual harrassment and escaping from near slavery. Whilst all the the above happened in Eastern Europe last year, not a lot of it has come my way in the Middle East, I do have some stories about smuggling taxi drivers, secret sex hand shakes, hitchking, being mistaken for a Russian prostitue ( easily done), Israeli interrogation, being sexually harrassed in Palestine and my mega crushes on the President of Syria and the King of Jordan.

Once I get myself at a computer for longer than 15 minutes I'll get them down for your viewing pleasure!

Kirsty x

Scrapbook - Eastern Europe

2010-08-02T14:05:00.001-07:00

Post Holiday (Home but Still Sleeping on Floors ) Blues

2009-07-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

So I've been home for nearly a month now, and all the things I came home for have failed to materialise. Most noticeably my bed. After several months of other peoples beds, couches, armchairs, floors and bus seats all I wanted was my own room, where I could unpack all of my belongings and put them in the drawers and boxes they once called home. I wanted to see my my books, my ipod, my dvd box set of Spaced with it's special features disc, but instead THIS is what I came home to find. Fucking Dulex, a ladder and the pungent smell of turps.

Gone was my wardrobe, gone was my bed, carpet gone, wallpaper gone, my clothes had been pillaged by my little sister, and my phone, god knows it took me long enough to find stuffed in some far flung corner of my loft. And the pictures below is actually an improved version of what I arrived home to, after I managed to frog march my mum to B&Q to buy some wallpaper.

Bless my mum, really, she wanted me to have a surprise when I came home, but my mum runs on a different timeline to other people, especially when it comes to decorating, we haven't had any dining rooms chairs since 2007, and my parents and my sisters room still have one wall missing wallpaper.

So yeah, there's no place like home, apparently.

Amsterdam

2009-07-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Home Sweet Home

2009-06-16T16:13:00.001-07:00

The Berlin Wall

2009-06-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

It´s amazing to see the thing in real life. Who came up with this thing? Who sat down and thought, "right I know, lets just build a wall and divide a whole city in two, that makes loads of sense."

After the defeat of Germany, the four victorious powers, Britain, USA, France and the Soviet Union divided up the country into East and the West, and then unhappy with Stalin having complete control of the capital did the same with Berlin. So two states arose in Germany, one the one side there was the democratic Ferderal Republic of Germany and on the other the GDR, both of which claimed to be the core model for a single united Germany. Now everyone, knew that those in the East got the short straw, so whilst the Soviet Union eased up on the other "peoples democracies", they took a hard line with Germany, leading to a hemoraage of refugees heading toward the West. So how do you stop people moving to the West? Build a big wall and a death strip. Easy peasy.

It persisted as a barrier between the eastern and western Germany for 28 years and one day. Standing as a symbol of the Iron Curtain, a conceptual as well as physical boundary dividing Europe, from the end of the Second World War up to the end of the Cold War.

This worked well enough until 1989 when the shit hit the fan. The Soviet Union launched an ill advised invasion of Afghanistan, calling into question their authority and raising the subject of greater freedom and reform in the GDR. Around this time Hungary removed its border restrictions with Austria, causing refugees to leave for the West.

Austria, Hungary and Czech off their where not too happy about the whole thing and The GDR decided that the refugees be allowed to exit through the crossing points between East and West Germany "with proper permission" to stop them nagging.

So Gunter Schabowski, the minister of propaganda of East Germany, who was to announce the new regulations, was out on a holiday during the period of the creation of the new rules, getting nice tan and on the day of the conference in which he was supposed to declare the new rules, he didn´t really have a clue about what was going on, so he like any good minister for propaganda, read off a sheet, and when an Italien journalist asked the unexpected question of when this would come into effect, he replied "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay".

Everyone went CRAZY, what did he just say? They could cross the wall right now?!

Huge crowds began gathering at the checkpoints of the wall to enter into West Berlin. Unable to take any action against the swarms of East Germans, the border guards just opened the checkpoints and had a huuuuge party, like it was 1999, except it was 1989 an everyone woke up the next day with the worst hangover they´d ever had. A small price for freedom I reckon.

Berlin (Lego) Wall

2009-06-16T09:52:00.003-07:00

Berlin makes me so happy.

Berlin

2009-06-16T09:52:00.001-07:00

I don't need to elaborate on the fact that Germany has one hell of a chequered past, most of it played out in Berlin, but it´s for this reason that Berlin is so amazing.

Unlike London or Paris it doesn´t find it´s identity in the past, instead it´s constantly reinventing itself, looking to the future, creating the most amazing openminded, modern and tolerant society. There are a patchwork of neighbourhoods, each with it´s own distinctive personality, adding up to an ulimited creative energy, that carries you along with it. All of this creativity is then coupled with a strong anarchistic and anti estbalishment sentiments, making for some of the best street art I´ve ever seen. Argh I love this place too much.

Templehof

2009-06-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

"S q u a t T e m p e l h o f !

Public mass occupation of the former Tempelhof Airport on 20th June, 2009

On October 31, 2008, Tempelhof Airport in Berlin was closed, leaving an open space of around 400 hectares (525 football fields) in the middle of the city. Something that sounded good at first, could instead be catastrophic for residents of the surrounding area. The Berlin Senate plans to build luxury apartments and room for the so-called creative industries on the land. Until their plans are realized, the whole land will remain fenced in and be increasingly heavily guarded. We have experienced such measures before. The Senate planned the large-scale development of
the banks of the river Spree, attempting to attract investment and cooperations with media partners, in so doing changing dramaticaly the structure of the city. A widespread movement managed to prevent some of the building projects and created a public debate about the ongoing
neo-liberal restructuring of the city. Various initiatives and actions continue to fight against this form of redevelopment.

The plans for Tempelhof Airport are an important part of the Senate’s redevelopment strategy. Investors are being wooed and invited to put forward their town planning and development proposals, through which accessible space in the city is being privatised and made more
exclusive. This brings about more comfortable living and working conditions for those who can afford it. However, for everyone else it means only increased rent, requiring many to leave the environment in which they feel they belong. The division of the city is not a phenomenon
particular only to Berlin; all over the world cities and regions battle against each other to show their most attractive face to potential international investors. This situation is no accident of fate, but rather is intricately bound up with the capitalist economic and social order.

In the case of Tempelhof we are at the beginning of such a process. We want to intercede at this early stage and set an example, to show that we will not accept the neo-liberal transformation of our city. We have many ideas about how the land could be put to uncommercial uses that reflect
the needs of the local community. We want to decide over the new usage of the land for ourselves!

Therefore we would like to invite one and all to the
Occupation of the Tempelhof open space
on 20.06.2009

There will be many of us, united in anger that we have not been given the chance to influence what happens in our immediate surroundings. We demand that the Senate removes the fences! If they do not, we will resort to civil disobedience to take the land. Our methods are as multifaceted as the members of our movement. We are the family from next door, the Neukölln crew, the autonomous, the punk, the illegalised, the unemployed, people with dogs, international activists, the fun fanatics and so on… There are countless ideas for uncommercial usage of the land: cheap living places, trailer parks, theatres, intercultural gardens and parks, barbecue areas, cultural centres, skate parks, adventure parks, museums, agricultural use…

Be creative! Go wild! Take the free space!"

That´s my weekend planned!

An Ode to James

2009-06-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

Making plans while your traveling is pretty much next to impossible. When I originally decided to come out traveling again I was going to go to India in September, then I got a job and had to apply to Uni, so no India, then Russia and Eastern Europe, but I was too lazy to fill out a visa for Russia even if I did to night school to learn Russian, so no Russia, then all of a sudden it seemed like a great idea to buy a flight to Bulgaria, so I did. Then with no prior planning I found myself in Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro...and now I'm in Germany feeling a little bit lost and confused.

After the Czech disaster, my schedule was thrown well out of sync and there aren't any farms in Germany who need workers, and theres one in the very north of Denmark, which is next to impossible to get to and way out of my way, and it makes no sense to stick around Germany with nothing to do.... I think I should leave France for another day, so it seems like the next logical step would be to go to Amsterdam and catch a cheap flight home to Liverpool, sort some long awaited Uni forms out, before I head out to see Nicole in the U S of A.

I'm excited and happy to be coming home, I really am. It's been nearly four months, my clothes look like shit...I look like shit and I don't want to have to introduce myself again for a while. It It's going to be nice to catch a bit of summer at home, ride my lovely old bike, have a BBQ with the family , go to Le Bateau ( no club compares trust me) Sometimes I think traveling is as much about reconciling yourself with your own country as it is about discovering new ones.

The only catch is my best friend, Mr James Rand, the man I'll probably marry if no one else comes along by the time I'm 35, has bought a flight to come out to Berlin at the beginning of July. But it seems that there's no way I can hang fire for a month to come back to Germany without draining my already battered bank account. One month is a long time when you don't have a bed or a job.

So this little blog is dedicated to James who has decided to do it alone, he could have kicked up a fuss, and he had every right to, but no he's taken it all in stride and is going to do it alone...which isn't that difficult a task once you get into the swing of things, but the first time you travel any where by youself it's stress on a plate. So kudos to James and the next time you see him give him a non sexual hug from me.

Barack Obama

2009-06-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Dresden the day after Barack Obama, gutted.

Kirsty Houdini and the Great Czech Escape Act

2009-06-10T03:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to run away. I've always been a fight more than a flight type of girl but last weekend I actually got up at the crack of dawn, packed my bags and snook out of the guest house where I was working and hit the road.

I had planned to work at a health retreat in a little town, north east of Prague and stay there for a few weeks before heading toward Berlin to meet a friend. I had it all planned to perfection. The advertisement on Helpx asked for someone to help clean and cook, especially people who where interested in yoga and well being etc. This sounded perfect, I could stay in one place for a while, and not have to think about train timetables, help out, eat some home cooked food, learn about reiki and aromatherapy...they don´t do those courses at LSE...and obviously this place was going to be run my some hippies so I could chill out and talk about spirituality and alternative ways of living with them, (I love hippies, there like an alternative species) groovy,BUT NO.

When I arrived it as clear that it wasn't a wellbeing center, it was a small appallingly decorated guest house (I grew up watching Changing Rooms, what do you expect?) ran by a guy called Tomas and his mother, neither of whom spoke very good English. The guest house had a few rooms and a small swimming pool and a sauna, and when I arrived Tomas showed me around, and let me settle in, so I asked him if I could wash my clothes and check my emails, and he also let me use the pool. So it wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I was happy enough to have somewhere to rest my head for a bit.

It also turned out that I was there first helper, and I don't think they really got the jist of what Helpx involves. I started work at 9am, I cleaned all of the rooms, changing bedding, cleaned bathrooms inc bathroom floors and walls, hovered, then the mother had me scrubbing,yes scrubbing the stairs on my hands and knees like Cinderella, and then after that she had me scrub the floor of the bar area, again on my hands and knees. Now I'm not afraid of hard work at all, in fact I take after my mum and I can be a bit of a house elf, but this was just degrading. "Well being centre" by arse.

I decided just to stay for one week and then find another place to work or to hang around in Germany for a bit longer, so after my work was finally done I asked Tomas if I could use the computer for a while to sort myself out. But a soon as I sat down on it the mother was asking me how long I would be on it...from what I could gather from our broken English/German /Czech conversation was that she was an online gambling addict and she had to play fourteen games a day to stay in the league, so my presence on the computer was not welcome.

So later I asked Tomas if I could use another computer, as I really did need some vague access to the outside world...then later on that night the mother approached me and said she was not happy. Her reasoning ran a little bit like this:

" You come and I think I only give you food and bed, but you come and you washed cloth and use Internet, you swim, this second day, what on third day you take my arm. You are not family, you come to help, you serve us, you should be lower, is it like this in England..."

So this went on for about half an hour and I tried to explain to her that her son had allowed me to use the washing machine and the computer and asked me if I wanted to use the pool, to which she replied that her son was soft, and then she jumped onto a translation website to tell me via the computer screen that " this is between you and me".

That was it, I could have gritted my teeth, and for practical reasons stayed for a few days to try and get in touch with people in Prague or Germany, let my clothes dry, find out bus and train times, shit, I didn't even know where the bus station was. I could have spoken to them, explained my situation but what was the point, it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere, I'd just be working in a miserable job for another week. I have always promised myself never to adhere to the "sake of the kids" mentality. I refuse to be trapped in an unhappy situation because of my dependence or a fear of the unknown. If your not happy just go, change, move on. So I did.

I packed up my soaking wet clothes, set my alarm for the crack of dawn and snook out of the house and manged to orientate my way to a bus station. I manged to catch a bus to Prague and from Prague the next train out was headed to Dresden, so I jumped on it and well here I am. Safe and sound, with my hands recovering from the bleach.

Pissed in Prague

2009-06-10T02:59:00.000-07:00

There's pretty much one reason why people come to the Czech Republic, and that's beer. The population of the Czech Republic consume 283 pints per person per year compared to the 180 consumed in the UK. It's probably because its so ridiculously cheap here. Basing your whole tourist industry on cheap booze, is the equivalent of wearing a low cut top on a building site, your just asking for trouble. The streets here are lined with stag party's and under payed immigrants handing you Irish pub leaflets whilst wearing leprechaun hats (the joys of Irish diaspora!)

When I was a kid beer was possibly the most foul tasting thing in the world. I remember taking a sly swig of my dads once and having to spit it out into the kitchen sink. So when I did start drinking, like most, at the tender age of fifteen i started on the alcopops, through to Southern Comfort, a few brief and messy encounters with Vodka, JD and coke because Pippa told me it was Karen O's favorite drink, before I hit home with Jamesons. Then came Mexico, an experience which converted me to the joys of beer. Now one year down the line my relationship with beer may well be coming to an end.

For me beer is like that boy/girl you always find yourself flirting with when your out just because they're there, but then there comes a point when you realise that you just don't fancy them that much and the whole thing is actually a silly idea.

I only drink it because it's cheap and plentiful,don't get me wrong, it's nice to take your time and chat over a cold beer as it doesn't get you too wrecked, but drinking it non stop, and for the most part replacing your meals with a glass is dangerous territory. The waiters here don't give you breathing space to say no, as soon as you put down your first glass, theres another one under your nose and another notch on your tab. Lets face it, beer bloats you, and making most people slow, irritable and unable to move, which is why most men can't dance. It's no coincidence that the Nazi's first attempting at taking power was in a Munich beer hall.

What would poor old, depressing Kafka have to say about the whole thing? He was famous for calling Prague " A dear old mother with claws", now it's more like a "drunken uncle with beer breath". Yes it's beautiful, don't get me wrong but for me the Czech Republic is still a young country, created in 1919 under the treaty of Versailles and then divorced from Slovakia in the 90's its still trying to develop its own personality and what it has it's quickly being swept away and pickled in a wave of fermented cereal and Japanese tourists.

Soviet Kitsch

2009-06-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

Whilst in Croatia I managed to meet up with some lovely Americans who lived in Budapest, so I tagged along and found myself back East and found a lovely English girl to stay with ( she was the spit of Daisy from Spaced) and constructed the most amazing British Bubble for a few days, which involved getting a take away curry and watching John Cusack films, although I remember High Fidelity being much better than it was...soundtrack is still pretty amazing though.

Budapest is like Vienna's slutty sister, I love it, it's so WWII it hurts. I did the usual Eastern stuff, thermal baths, ate lots of pastry, went to some Balkan Punk house party's and drank in an assortment of abandoned house bars ( they're everywhere) and had a throughly lovely time. But the one thing which has struck me since I've been here is the fact that I'm pretty much over Eastern kitsch.

Since the age of fourteen, I was taught more about the Eastern history than my own country's, so I'd always had it in mind to come here one day, and after Mexico I felt compelled to understand my own continent before I went jetting off again to some other far flung lands.

Now I'm here I've came to a bit of a realisation. The East as we fantasise about it in the West no longer exists and the constant focus on this small section of history is debilitating and futile, nothing more than Machiavellian distraction. Yes there are the Trabants, the GDR tv sets, the Lenin badges, theres still Belarus, Russian Militarism...but for the most part it's a part of the past which has now been filtered down into a tourist attraction, and an easily accessible and fashionable (they had good uniforms lets face it) ideology for the young and dissatisfied.

In Budapest I visited the Terror House, which was at varying times both the home of the Nazi and Soviet secret police and whilst looking through the cells, I heard one American women say " Doesn't it make you glad to be born in a free country". That did it for me, has she heard of little something called Guantanamo Bay? We focus on this section of history for one reason alone, we came out of the whole thing looking pretty good...so the British nation grows up with this in mind, coupled with Anglocentric news stories of British benevolence toward other countries.

I'm a complete product of this. One of my biggest regrets so far is that when I was seventeen, on the day that people where protesting against the war in Iraq I was sitting on a bus on my way to a friends house to get stoned. At that time I could tell you inside out the war atrocities committed in the 1940's but I had no clue what was going on in my own country.

This guilt about my general ignorance toward the rest of the world drove me to withdraw my degree in the History of Art and change it to International Relations, and I'm glad I have, even if it does mean I'll be starting Uni as some wrinkly mature student.

Now, my hearts not in Eastern Europe anymore, I'm still having an amazing time and meting some fantastic people but the next time I'm leaving British shores it's over to the States or the Middel East where history is actually happening, it's not just confined to Musuems with ridiculous entrance fees. Anyone for Isreal next summer? Yeah?!

Conversations in Croatia

2009-06-09T02:57:00.000-07:00

In Croatia I had a tough time trying to find any Couch Surfing hosts so I ended up spending too much time and money in Hostels. And now I can say with a great deal of conviction that beach resorts attract the worst sort of travelers. Fact. Here I shall recreate two conversations I took part in and/or heard to illustrate my point:

The LA screenwriter

Me: So what do you do?
LA screenwriter: I direct and screen write in LA
Me: Cool! I'd love to get into documentary making at some point...
LA screenwriter: Oh yeah, I'm making a documentary at the moment
Me: Wow, what's it about?
LA screenwriter: It's a series of the photographs I took during my travels in South East Asia, about the culture and my time there, my feelings, so it will be the pictures set to music with some pictures fading in and some moving into each other...
Me: Right....so it's a power point slide show of your holiday pics?
LA screenwriter: Yeh
Me: Oh......that's interesting concept for a documentary (being from LA he didn't get sarcasm so my low blow went unnoticed)

Australian/Canadian pillow talk

Just some background on this conversation, in the hostel I was staying at in Hvar, there was a group of three Australian guys who'd been there for over two weeks, drinking from 9am in the morning and waiting for new prey, oh I mean girls to arrive...anyhow one night all three Neanderthals somehow managed to pull some unsuspecting ladies and tasteful brought them back to their bunk beds in a six bedroom dorm, and this wonderfully romantic conversation was relayed to me the following morning.

Canadian girl: I'm going back to my room...
Australian guy: No!
Canadian girl: No, I need some down time
Australian guy: There's no downtime with me, I need you to get my rocks off again!

Couch Surfing V. Hostels

2009-06-09T02:52:00.000-07:00

When I travel I really try my best not to stay in hostels. There's a reason why the is a horror film of the same name. I don't travel to some far off land to get pissed with a guy from Bath, or worse some Australians. I have no desire to rot in a hotel or run the tourist marathon.

The last time I traveled I used CouchSurfing for the first time, and I swear by it. If your not familiar with the concept, it runs like this.You have a profile and when your just about to move onto a new city you email a couple of people in that area who take your interest, if they like to look of you, they accept your request to surf with them. If your lucky they will meet you at the station or give you direction on how to get to their address, show you around their city, give you a fantastic home cooked meal, which is the best thing in the world when you've been living off cereal bars for a few days.

It's not just about finding free accommodation, it's more of a cultural exchange, the person who hosts you opens up their home and way of life. Often I don't even stay in some peoples places, I'll just meet them for a coffee or a walk around the city. It's like having your own personal tour guide and translator, purrrfect.

Don't get me wrong sometimes you don't click with your host or the person can be a plain weirdo. I remember when I hosted some Canadian girl she decided to call Quebec from my house phone, I was fummmming!

Another issue is personal space. Maybe I can be a bit of a hermit at times, my friends can vouch for that. Sometimes I just need a bit of time to myself...and when I'm traveling even more so. I need a minute to process everything that's going on around me. When you couch surf you are pretty much tied to your host. Some hosts give you that space, god I've even been given the keys to the house and my own bedroom in some places.

But more than often your sleeping on a couch, so you have to wait for your host to go to bed, wait around in the town until they get home, smile when all you want to do is mope about. Sometimes I catch myself being a moody bitch and I have to remember the scale of generosity and hospitality I'm being offered.

In hostels you do have the ability to come and go as you please, but still you can't exactly lol about in your undies, although the Greek guy at my last hostel liked to think so, except he wasn't wearing undies, they were more like knickers. Anyway I'm sure if I was in a group of friends a hostel would be loads of fun, but when you travel by yourself it can be lonely, with couch surfing I have a little group of friends waiting for me in every city. It sounds a little cliche I know, but it's true. I'm having a David Lynch movie night later on, and I'm hitching to Berlin with a girl I met here in Dresden...and I already have a girl whose happy to take me out clubbing when I get there...also there's a squat being arranged at an old airport which some couchsurfers hav invited me to.

I don't really understand why there are people who still haven't heard of it...so this little blog is a call to arms to set up a profile, and get moving. Traveling doesn't have to cost the world, it's not the preserve of the free range middle class kids, it's now an egalitarian process, anyone can do it, get a cheap flight or train ticket, make a profile, find a host, pack a bag and go!

Screw you Katy Perry

2009-06-09T02:33:00.000-07:00

Here is the infamous Katy Perry bikini on tour, personally I think I beat Katy in the 50's beach babe stakes ( that's what I'm telling myself anyway), but I have realised that I just look dirty with a tan. My Celtic skin is just not design for the sun. You know that line from the Robert Burns poem "To a Mouse", "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley" from which John Steinbeck took inspiration, well this line perfectly sums up my relationship with the sun, no mater how lovingly I laver on the SPF50 onto every nook and cranny of my body, I will do a Robert and burn, ( sorry that was an appalling joke) without fail in some area or another and thus develop the patchiest looking tan known to man. I'm over the sun now, I'm just going to buy some Dove Summer Glow and be done with it.

The Porn Identity

2009-06-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

If your in the area, I implore you, go to see the exhibition, The Porn Identity in the Wein Musuem Quarter, it's fricking hilarious. For the most part the exhibition and it's contents amount to nothing more than what you'd find in any teenage boys bedroom, but the actual shared experience of visiting the exhibition is fascinating. The majority of the exhibition comprises of various porno films of varying strengths and tastes, so as you approach a screen to take a closer look at what the hell is actually going on the screen, the other people around you move away from the screen, as if watching the film at the same time as you would amount to some sort of shared sexual experience...so everyone walked around the whole exhibition avoiding each other, with their eyes fixed on the floor, as if making eye contact with another in this environment would tantamount to a come on. I spent my whole time their trying to have stare out competions, I reckon I came out champion.

Another high point was Stanley Kubricks sculputre, I quite want one for my garden so I can make a little water feature out of it.

Dumpster Diving in Vienna

2009-06-09T02:10:00.000-07:00

I could move here permanently. You remember that line from the Beautiful South song " This could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome", well sometimes when you arrive in a new country, that lyric actually makes sense ( yeah I just wrote that a Beautiful South song rings true, so get the cool police to shoot me), but as soon as you get into Vienna, you know that du bist in Österriech, it´s just so stately and ornate, It really does look like a capital of an Empire. It makes sense that Hitler studied here, it´s the type of city that cultivates dreams of thousand year Reichs.

But it is not as archaic as it´s architecture suggests, it´s got such a vibrant underground scene here. I´ve been staying in a flat with some students who are really involved in the whole dumpster diving movement. Basically, supermarkets throw away a stupid amount of perfectly good food, due to super strict health and safety laws, so you just find a mate with a key, get a copy or borrow it and help yourself. We had a little chocolate feast when we go back and I got some lovely ripe aubergines and grapes for lunch the next day! I never want to have to wait in line at the Tesco self service till ever again.

There are so many subversive groups active here, like the Black Transport Group. Here you don´t necessarily need to buy a ticket for the underground, but if your caught bunking you of course get a fine ( I can talk from personal experience), but theres a group to whom you pay a very small amount in comparison to the metro ticket price, and if your unlucky enough to be fined you can apply to this group for the money to pay it.

They also took me to this street party, which was a sort of movement to reclaim the streets as a public place, and there was a little bar to watch some Balkan punk group and you could pay as much as you wanted for a beer or for food.

The city is a perfect synthesis of old and new Europe, it's probably the most perfect city I've vere visited.

Belated Blogging

2009-06-09T02:02:00.000-07:00

I'm back, I'm not dead and neither have I lost my fingers and thus my ability to type, I just haven't really had a chance to sit at a computer for more than five minutes, which is usually spent frantically trying to find Couch Surfing hosts and train/bus timetables.

So just to keep you up to date, since my last blog I've swept my way through:

Vienna, Austria
Zagreb, Croatia
Split, Croatia
Hvar, Croatia
Budapest, Hungary
Prague, Czech Republic
Jablonec nad Niscou, Czech Republic
Dresden, Germany

And in the process I have gained a tan, ran away from a sketchy job ( as in snook out of the house at the crack of dawn), been dumpster diving....all of which I shall in good time write a little blog about.

Camel Riding School

2009-05-15T02:49:00.001-07:00

My trip has taken the most bizarre turn. Really. For me traveling by definition is surreal, your sense of normality comes from a famililarity with your daily routine and surroundings, so when this is taken away from you and there is nothing constant in your life then yes things are always a little bit odd. One day your in a car which is going way over any speed limit listening to Serbian punk an the next minute your in the middle of the Austrian countryside sunbathing in your undies...but what I´m doing right now takes the Dali shaped, baked by Andre Breton, surrealist biscuit.

Whist working at the Heurigen I heard that there was a riding school in the area that also needed some workers, but this isn´t just any ordinary riding school, yes there are horses but they´ve also got 11 camels hanging around the place...not to metion the ostriches, a lama, a snake, deer, and loads of gineau pigs (?!)...and a bizarre collection of stuffed animals to round it all off.

The school is ran my the most formidable woman I´ve ever met, Gerda Gasthoff. She had come from a particulary wealthy family in Lower Austria and had rode horses proffesionally since she was young, and during the 60´s she decided to leave home and spent years traveling around the USA and England during the flower movement and various Arabic countires where she fell in love with Camels. When she returned to Austria in the 70´s her father bought her two camels and upon his death she inherited the family rubber factroy which her husband now runs, whilst she uses the huge amount of land she got with the house to establish her riding school.

Gerda is an absolute force of nature, she´s 60 odd but you should see getting her leg over a horse not to mention the fact her abs are fimer than mine will ever be! Actually she treats you like your an unruly horse, barking orders and telling you off all the time, but while we were herding the camels she explained to me..." some people say they cannot work with me, and that I am like a military person, but I have to be strong, look I have to be in control of 11 camels, your horse, my two horses ( she was walking one horse on a lead whilst riding another). " She has a point.

You have to remember this is a woman whose been there and seen it all twice over. She´s a real aristocratic lady, controled, graceful and domineering...Talking about men " I think you can have any man you want, they are like animals, if you show them that you want to make sex with them you can, they are like deer". Hahaha, the term inspirational doesn´t even begin to sum up this lady!

So yeh, now I can tick off herding camels and doing naked pilates exceries in a sauna (HILARIOUS) from My List of Things to Do Before I Die.

Eurocrem

2009-05-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

Whislt looking through my pictures I just remebered this little gem I found in Montenegro!

My favourite game while traveling is "The Ugly Chocolate Bar" game. It goes like this. Your at a bus/train station eargerly awaiting your mode of transport to take you to new and exciting lands, then you realise your purse is a handful of change which which in a few hours time will be completley useless, so what do you do with it? Go into the nearest shop and buy the worst looking product you can find, nine times out of ten it will be a chocolate bar.

This has to be my favourite. Eurocrem. My own personal theory behind it is that Montenegro was sooo happy about the erosion of the outdated Westphalian system, that it decided to celebrate the dawn of a new global era and it´s union with the EU, the most important regional intergovermental organisation in the world through the medium of flaky hazelnut flavoured chocolate. Yum yum.

Gutted

2009-05-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

Until yesterday I hadn´t seen a celeb magazine for nearly three months, and seeing one ( I couldn´t understand it so I just looked at the pictures) after such a long time has raised some very important questions both about myself and the world:

a) What has happened to Lindsay Lohan? Why has she gone all annorexic again? Is she not a happy go lucky lesbo anymore?

b) Why was Katy Perry pictured with Rihanna wearing the same bikini as the one I´ve been traveling around with?! Do I dress like Katy Perry? I´m actually devastated.

Willis Bauenhauf Farm

2009-05-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

So here I am, in a little village called Aichau, pronounced like Dachau, without the D, did I just make a Nazi joke?! Yes I did and there´s plenty more where that came from!

It´s a little family run farm, which makes it´s living from providing farm holidays and running a Heurigen three times a year. A Heurigen is as Austrian as Austria gets, I´d say it ws the Austrian equivilent of a Sunday pub lunch wth the family. People from the surrounding towns and villages come to the farm to eat the self prodcued cider, juices, cakes, cheeses, bread and most importantly meat.

I never have to see another peice of meat in my entire life, last night when I was trying to sleep all I could visualise was meat. My dreams are turing into some sort of Fracnis Bacon tryptich and it´s proper making me ill. For those of you who aren´t in on the joke that is my upbringing, my mum is a strict vegitarian, for example if I used a fork to eat a peice of chicken and then put said fork into a jar of mayo she´d freak out and have to buy another jar, and my dad has been a butcher since he was 16 years old. No lie. I know, I´ve no idea how on earth they managed to get past the first date never mind marry.

So on the whole I´m rather ambivalent toward the whole subject. But feeding a pig one day and then cutting it up the next is waaay gross. I think they can sense it you know, when I go in to clean them out and feed them they shit themselves, it´s like they can smell all of their dead friends making their way through my digestive system. (They must have a fantastic sense of smell, since pig sty´s fucking stink, there is no wretching like the wretch caused by pig shit, let me tell you. )

They have a whole herd of cows here as well, and yesterday I got to name a little baby calf, which thnkfully distracted me from the horror I felt at discovering it´s placenta when i was mucking it out. The calf had no idea where it´s mothers milk was, anad kept nibbling at the cows legs, so I called it Coloman, after Austria´s first patron Saint, who like the calf looked a little bit lost. He was actually Irish and whilst on his way to Jerusalem for some sight seeing he was accused of being a Turkish spy and put to death, because he was foreign.

I learnt that yesterday on a guided tour around the monastary where Christina, the farmer´s wife works. Yes a monastary. I´ve decided that The Sound of Music is actually a documentary about Austrain life and not a musical.

They also have two horses who I´ve renamed Ken and Barbie, a pony who I´ve called Tina, since it has THE same haircut as Tina Turner, rabbits, chickens, ducks and a gineau pig. I just hope they don´t decide to eat any of them, I really don´t want to make horse burgers.

Olivia Newton John

2009-04-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

I´ve made a little hop, skip and a jump to Austria after Bosnia Hercegovnia. I know, I know, "Why didn´t you go to Croatia, or Lake Bled in Slovenia, your missing out!" , well I´ve had enough country hopping for a while. So I´m spending a day or so in Vienna and then I´m off to a little town called Melk to work on a farm. It´s all going to get sooo Julie Andrews from here on in. I plan to do the whole "The hills are alive" scene when I get there and if I´m really in the mood I´ll throw in " Do-Re-Me".

I love traveling (obv), but sometimes the need for some sort of routine or purpose becomes overwhelming. Sightseeing does tend to degenerate into aimless wandering and after a while you lose track of where you´ve been, what city you´re in and how long you´ve actually been there for.

Another issue I´m having is junk food, after watching Milk and hearing about Dan White´s Twinkie Defence, I really think his lawyers had a point. You don´t really have much of an opportunity to cook when your in someone else house or a hostel, and here you can´t exactly nip into Tesco for some Good For You (prepared by illegal immigrants) tuna salad. Your options are limited to meat, pastry, bread and erm some more bread. Give it two more weeks and I´ll be bordering on the "how far gone are you" stage and before I came out traveling I made a serious promise with myself, I would not do a Mexico, i.e come home a stone heavier, making my entire wardrobe defunct. So I need to do an Olivia Newton John and get physical.

I´m actually looking forward to shovelling shit if it means getting my lazy, disintergrating muscles to work again....omg as if I just typed that.

Bosnia Hercegovinia

2009-04-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

I´ve left Bosnia Hercegovinia with such strongly mixed emotions.

On the one hand I fell in love with Sarajevo and it´s Bascarisija, the cobbled Turkish quarter with it´s minarets and the beautiful calls to prayer that issue from them, it´s mosques, churches, the stupidly cheap little cake shops, the Shisha pipes, the smell of grilled meat and coffee and the noise of little Turkish coffee sets being hammered into shape.

But just beneath the surface there´s something not quite right. I just don´t feel comfortable enjoying myself here, being here (as dramatic as it sounds) reminds me of entering the gas chambers at Auschwitz, it´s just a room but something of the past bears down on you, it´s the only way I can describe it.

The countries history is fucked up to put it lightly, so it seems fitting that WWI was sparked here by the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand on the Latin bridge in the heart of Sarajevo. The idea of "Yugoslavism" (land of the Southern Slavs) was born here from the growing resentment against foreign occupation which they finally shrugged off before being annexed by the facist Croatian state. After their support of Tito and the Partisans fight against the Nazi´s the country was awarded republic status and all was fine and dandy until the 90´s when Communism began to fall apart.

Nationalism once more swept Eastern Europe with the fall of communism, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, which rubbed Serbia up the wrong way, as it shat all over there dreams of a Greater Serbia..then Bosnia got in on it, which really pissed off Serbia, I mean its bad enough that they wanted independence, never mind the fact that they were Muslims!! Serbia's answer to all this was to place Sarajevo under siege and to embark upon a policy of ethnic cleansing. If no Bosnaiks live in Bosnia, what claim do they have to it! This was to be achieved by mass murder and rape.

The buildings in Sarajevo bear the scares of thousands of bullet holes, but nothing compares to the scale of devastation you can still, fifteen years on, see in Mostar. It was hard to see a city so brutally destroyed. From the large craters caused by shelling, the shallow shrapnel groves and the deep precise holes from bullets which had missed their intended victims. It´s especially difficult when you see a cluster of these pock marks at chest height.

Initially Mostar was set upon by Serbian forces from the eastern hills and then from Croats on the West bank, who manged to destroy the towns inconic bridge and namesake ( Mostar means Keeper of the Gate). After the Dayton Agreement a lot of money went into rebuilding the city centre and repairing the bridge stone for stone, and now the city is coming back to life, but the thing which keeps coming back to me is a quote I remembered reading in the book, Women´s Side of War, which was given to me by the NGO in Belgrade.

" We will build new bridges but the people here will never recover"

How can you move on from something so terrible with all of these constant reminders? I got little lost walking around Mostar and came across a huge cemetery, every single headstone read 1992. Every single one. That was the year my little sister was born, somehow it made it even more difficult, especially when I saw certain headstones with my mum´s date of birth...whole families destroyed.

As much as I try to deny the fact, I´m a tourist and never have I felt like such an outsider as here in Bosnia Hercegovinia. I´ll never ever be able to understand what went on here or the things that these people have experienced and there´s something really heartbreaking about that.

2009-04-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

2009-04-30T05:42:00.001-07:00

Peeping Tom

2009-04-26T03:11:00.000-07:00

I have officialy had enough of men. You´re all creeps. I spent last year dealing with a life times worth of creepy men in Mexico, casa de machismo, and Frances has just finished a two month trip around Africa, so I'd say we're both pretty well prepared for anything the opposite sex can throw at us whilst traveling, but our journey from Albania to Montenegro just took things to another level.

Back home I'm ten a penny looks wise, so it's nothing to do with my supernatural beauty, but when you come to somewhere like the Balkans, being fair makes you stick out like a sore thumb, so you attract a great deal of male attention. Usually it's just uncomfortable staring, a cat call, or just awkward chit chat, which can easily be brushed off. And of course there are the odd benefits, free drinks or meals being payed for by your secret admirer at the other end of the cafe.

While we were waiting in Shkodra, Albania for our bus to Ulcinj in Montenegro we sat in a park, where we noticed a Roma guy just lurking around, which isn't so strange since the men here don't seem to do any work at all, they just wander about and talk the world to rights in cafes whilst smoking and drinking coffee. But he must have been standing in the same spot for at least two hours, it took us a fair few glances to establish beyond all doubt what he was up to. The guy was just standing there, with his hand in his "pocket" fondling himself, a little bit too rapidly for my liking.

So after we moved away from him, some old guy started kicking off about the vest top I was wearing, making a sign of the cross over his chest and pointing at me like I was the Anti Christ. He'd have a point if I was wearing a leotard or something, but hand on heart, there wasn't even the slightest bit of clevage showing.

So when we manged to get on the bus, after having had our coffees and food paid for by yet another man in a cafe, we arrived in Montenegro. Frances had found the address of a "hostel" with a nine bed dorm, for €9 a night, but when the taxi dropped us off there, it turned out to be a small house, with a spare room and when we asked about the price, the mother and her daughter in law, kept trying to avoid the question...there were just some strange vibes going on but we decided just to see the night through and move on the next day.

Later in the evening the family literally dragged us out of our room to have a drink with them in the living room, and the mother kept encouraging her younger son to sit next to Frances and he kept asking me to take pictures of the two of them, (clearly as an excuse to grope her waist) and the daughter in law, the only one who spoke English, refused to tell us what her son-in-law and his friend we're saying and kept making dubious comments," he makes me nervous".

Finally we manged to escape and as we we're getting ready for bed, I heard Frances talking to someone in the bathroom...which was a bit strange since there was no one else in there...well so I assumed. It turned out that the bathroom was adjacent to another bathroom, with a small frosted glass window between the two which had been pushed open slightly, just enough for one sexually deviant Montenegran man to peep through. The guy had been sitting in the bathroom with his covers over him, in wait for us to use our bathroom!

Having clocked him, we expected and hoped for him to shuffle off, but when I reluctantly went to check the bathroom for a second time, all I could see was this little eyeball in the slit of the window. If I was stone cold sober I would have actually cried but with my bit of dutch courage I just walked up to the window, making eyeball to eyeball contact and told him to shut the window, then we just heard a russling, as he pretended to be asleep ( in the bathroom for god sake!) and not to hear us, so the window remained opened all night. We we're so scared to go back in Frances actaully had to wee in the sink.

Luckily enough we had locks to all of the doors and we slept with all of the lights on and my can of pepper spray next to my pillow...just in case he found a way to squeeze through the window. I have to admit it did get a bit out of hand when Frances decided she had to sleep with a butter knife in her hand.

The next morning he tried to avoid our angry stares and pretended not to understand Frances hilarious telling off " Dude, that was not cool, last night was not cool man!" and when we got to the bus station we we're more than relieved, that's until Frances got followed into the toilet, by a guy who later decided offer us sweets on the bus. Talk about stereotyping yourself, if your going to be creepy, be a bit creative about it, you may aswell write peado on your head if your going to around offering sweets to young(ish) girls.

Tirana, Albania

2009-04-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

The best thing about Tirana is it´s buildings. The town Mayor, Edi Raymer, an artis t by trade, decided to begin a programme of regeneration in the capital by painting the towns buildings in the most amazing colours and geometric designs, shaking off the totalitarian grey that dominates most Eastern European cityscapes. The things you can do with a lick of paint!

On the topic of which I've just found out that in my abscence mum has stripped my bedroom bare and decided to redecorate it, and according to my sister is making regular trips to Ikea. I might just stay out here forever.

Dhermi, Albania

2009-04-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

I really like Tirana but I'd really had enough of walking around cities, so on Monday Frances ( my new Canadian travel buddy) and an American/Italian couple we'd crossed paths with decided to head to Dhermi, which is apparently the most undeveloped and isolated coastline in the whole of the Mediterranean. Being as undeveloped as it is it was a feat getting there, and we must of spent an hour haggling with a cab driver until it degenerated into us offering him a beers to take us there. When we eventually arrived the sun was just setting and it was just beautiful, just a cluster of apartments above one sea food restaurant. I had the most beautiful seafood pasta and calamari I'd ever had the privilege to put into my mouth after which we took a walk along the beach among the bunkers and disused and half finished buildings.

Then we decided to get some cash out and go to the local shop to buy some beers to sit on the beach with, so we asked the guy who had rented us out five pound apartments for the night for directions, and low and behold the area was so undeveloped the nearest shop and ATM was in Himare, the next town which was one whole hour away. I'm into nice isolated beach spots, but really?! So we managed to hitch a ride from two young Cha Cha guys in a suspiciously plush car with television screens in the headrests, and manged to sneek past some cows to get back to our apartment. I was really looking forward to a few days of nothing lying on the beach and finally reading the library I seem to be carrying around in my backpack.

That's until we woke up the next morning to the sound of torrential rain that bore no sign of letting up. Being stuck on the beach with nothing to do is a whole different ball park to being stuck in a tiny hotel room. So we managed to hitchhike back to the main town of Vlora with two really nice old guys, who decided to thumb over my entire Lonely Planet guide book, turning it in several direction to see if the English would somehow translate into Albanian with the changing of angles. Then they stopped off for some coffee at a sports bar that there friends ran and promised to take us to the center.

So we sat and had a coffee, not really understanding much of what was being said but enjoying the fact we'd managed to tapp into the machismo cafe culture that they have going on here, then one of the guys mentions that Liverpool is playing Arsenal that evening and we should stay the night, I kindly refused and then he came back to me with a pretty interesting reason for us to stay " Why would you and your friend want to leave here, I have a house here, you can take a shower, also my house has lots of marijuana and cocaine, lots,thats my job, of course you dont go back to Tirana!", after my second polite refusal he really did seem baffled by the fact this wasn't the most tempting offer I'd ever had, especially coming from a guy living in the European capital of organised crime.

Anyway long story short we manged to get out of the cafe, find a bus to Tirana and eat a kebab. So in the end it was a good day all round.

Hoxha's Bunkers, Albania

2009-04-22T04:25:00.001-07:00

I'm in love with these things, they dot the landscape here in Albania like an army of little Darleks (on the topic of which I'm really gutted I missed the Easter special of Dr.Who). Enva Hoxha, Albania's communist dictator from 1941-85, refused to join Yugoslavia and instead joined forces with Stalin until 1960 when he switched to China, (I'm sure he had good reason). So after the Soviet Unions' invasion of the Czech Republic he got all paranoid and decided to embark on a self reliant defense policy which resulted in the building of 70,000 of these things all over the country! I tried to crawl inside but I got really scared that I'd get stuck and I didn't know what on earth I'd find in there, so I just sat on top of one instead.

Kruja, Albania

2009-04-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

Kirsty Major's Final Thoughts

2009-04-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I said goodbye to Henrik who was traveling back to Bucharest and set off for Tirana in Albania. Transport here is a challenge to say the least, even the guidebook, my little Bible, seems a bit vague about the whole process of getting out of the country. So I figured I'd make my way to a little town called Struga which and then catch the one daily bus that leaves to Tirana.

I managed to find the bus to Struga, and when we arrived I tried to ask where could get the bus to Tirana since the little "furgons" here just drop you wherever they feel like it. The driver then started to shout down the bus whether anyone spoke English and luckily enough a girl who was boarding did, so as she was trying to explain to me where the main station was , the driver slammed his foot on the gas and drove up to the nearest taxi, and the girl who I later found out was called Melissa, took me off the bus along with another guy. The guy then pulled out his wallet and paid the taxi driver to take myself and my personal translator Melissa to the station. I was just dumbstruck through the whole process, I mean who in the UK would take such an interest in the well being of a complete and utter stranger, I just stood there with a huge grin on my face and an awkward looking backpack in my hands.

During the ride to station she explained to me how she was supposed to be in University but she didn't mind the detour at all, and when we arrived at the station the bus wasn't for another hour and she refused to let me wait alone, so she took my backpack and took me back into the centre for a coffee, and showed me around the town and then when it was time for me to get the bus she insisted I stayed for the night, and when I told her I really had to get to Albania, she made me promise I'd come back in the summer ( I really hope I can) and gave me three kisses on each cheek. I was just in awe. I can't say I've ever, even in Mexico received kindness and hospitality like that.

Then when I finally arrived in Tirana I took a taxi to a hostel. As you know, when you arrive in a new place the first thing you do is to get out the local currency and I say it takes about 3 days before you stop being distracted by the pretty patterns and realise the monies actual worth. So the first thing I payed for was the taxi, 500 leke, which is around 3 pounds, great. Then as I began to walk down the road, the taxi came veering back toward me and the driver starts waving a note at me, my first thought was oh shit, I didn't pay him enough or did I just hand him some Macedonian Dinar or something, ( I'm like a walking exchange bureau at the moment), but he'd driven all the way back to give tell me I'd handed him a 5000 leke note instead of the 500 and that I must be more careful with my money!

The whole day just blew my mind. I have to admit The Balkans isn't the most thirlling area Ive ever been to, but the thing which strikes me here is the sheer scale of the generosity and kindness of the people here. It was the same in Bulgaria and Serbia( lets not talk about Romania). Is it because in the West have we become so entrenched in the belief of the rugged individual, " Do unto others before they do unto you", that I'm unable to comprehend such selfless behaviour? I'm sorry to get all Jerry Springer's final thoughts on you here, but things like this really throw your own culture into relief. When I get to London I might just hang around Trafalgar looking for lost tourists to return the favour, or just do the dishes for my mum. One or the other.

Lake Orhid, Macedonia

2009-04-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

Cycling in Eastern Europe

2009-04-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Don't do it if you value your existence.

Macedonia

2009-04-15T10:19:00.001-07:00

Doesn't Macedonia, have THE coolest flag in the world? It sums up the feel of the place, the country being the only one of the former Yugoslav republics to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal, although Greece still refuses to acknowledge the republic, as its adamant that the name Macedonia belongs to them, they made Macedonia take on the drawn out title of "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", but everyone just calls it Macedonia anyway.

I've spent two nights here, one night in the capital which is living and breathing piece of social realism, epitomised by the huge sculpture situated in the centre of the town, depicting communist soldiers, women with their square jawed wrapped in head scarfs and muscular children all hold HUGE pieces of artillery. It's terrifying, no wonder Serbia didn't bother to attack Macedonia.

I really had no intention of coming here, in fact I didn't even know this country existed until last week. It's just underneath Kosovo, north of Greece and east of Albania, but it feels more like a Balkan version of Turkey, in fact there is a huge Muslim Albanian and Turkish population here. A little outside of the centre of the capital Skopje is the Old Bizarre, with stands selling grilled meats, Turkish coffee and pro Kosovo bumper stickers.

There is a great deal of tension here between Macedonians and Albanians, in fact in 2001 the President lost an eye in an assassination attempt over the issue of better representation for the Albanian minority here...I wish I had a Prime Minister with an eye patch.

Henrik

2009-04-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've managed to pick up a travel companion for the duration of my stay in Macedonia! Met Henrik, sports journalist, Finnish native, Swedish passport holder and Celtic FC fan.

It's fair to say this guy is a geographical oddity. He was born in Finland, moved to Sweden as a child before deciding to spend his 20's in Glasgow, his accent has the most amazing Glaswegian-Scandinavian lilt, like a deep fried ABBA song.

I met him whilst staying with his flat mate in Bucharest and we managed to cross paths in Novi Sad where he was writing a story about the North Korean ice hockey team and well we've come down to Macedonia for the hell of it.

The best thing about Henrik is his fantastically strange Finnish humour, which I'll admit I don't always get but is expressed so well in his little doodling, here's a few for you to see, my favourite is the little paint palette.

Serbia/Macedonia

2009-04-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

N-Dubz

2009-04-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to divert your attention away from the Balkans for one moment, just to give a big shout out to my little sister, whose keeping it real on the home front. Look at this picture! She managed to hunt down the guy from N-Dubz and get a picture of him fondling himself! She makes me so proud!

Fourth World

2009-04-14T03:30:00.001-07:00

This weekend I was invited by a friend to a small Serb - Hungarian, village called Backo Gradiste, just outside of Novi sad, home of the EXIT festival. From Belgrade to Novi Sad you take the train and then you take a little bus to the village, the main thing you notice here when traveling in between towns is the dramatic transition in the landscape. Within five minutes of being on the train or the bus you hit the gypsy ghettos, and I use that word in its sincerest sense. You know the scene in Danny Boyle's Slum Dog Millionaire, when the camera pans out onto Mumbai's slums, well that's pretty much what they look like here. There are communities built upon and around rubbish heaps, beside the railways and roadsides.

It's been like this for years apparently but it's all about to change, as in a few months Belgrade is hosting some sort of University Olympics, meaning there will be an influx of visitors to the area, all coming by train...and what could be worse than all of these people seeing the slums?!

So the government here has proposed not to solve the issue but to relocate them all to a new town...what genius idea! The organisation I've been volunteering for invited me along to a protest they'd helped to organise about the situation, it was interesting to witness it all, but I've never felt so out of place. Someone just thrust a sign into my hand, and after having held it for a good part of an hour, I managed to get someone to translate it for me. It read "Serbia is a concentration camp for the poor"....I eventually manged to get rid of it, which was a good thing as when the Roma gypsies turned up and the whole thing got a bit messy. On the whole it was a small affair, and apparently there was a poor turn out from the NGO sector and of course no Serbians really give a shit about the gypsies.

That night I went to a documentary festival that was on, to see the film "When Carmen Met Borat", which coincidentally was about a gypsy village in Romania where they filmed Borat. The film follows a teenage girl Carmen and her dreams, and the reaction of the village when they finally see what the film was really about. Carmen’s family, along with many of the citizens of Glod, decide to sue Borat and Twentieth Century Fox. They begin to plan their lives being rich, and are disappointed when it all falls flat on it's face and it drives home to them all that they really are trapped by their financial status...once a gypsy always a gypsy.

Returning to my trip to the village, when I arrived Slizard and his girlfriend had a bunch of old clothes in the boot of the car which they took to the gypsy village to distribute....you can't get away from the issue...I asked if this was something most people did, but sadly it seem to be a rare occurrence, and there is no formal form of charity or relief.

So it seems that the only way the government here will change it's policy is if more people take on the attitude of people like Slizard...and this won't be done by protesting, it's such an outdated form of activism...I dunno, the only time I've witnessed a group of people displaying empathy or sympathy to the issue was during the course of the documentary I went to see. I really do think it's time a lot of these NGO's woke up to this.

What the Fuck

2009-04-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to a big Couch Surfing get together in Belgrade and at the end of the night when everyone was saying there goodbyes, of course some people where swapping numbers but one guy in particular took social networking to a whole new level. He pulled out his wallet and produced this:
He had gone to the effort of typing up, printing out, photocopying and cutting out small wallet size social networking cards...what the fuck. This type of shit terrifies me, especially when you link it with the fact that he is a Sixth Form Chemistry teacher from Nottingham.

Burek

2009-04-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

There are a few things that it seems Serbians have a fondness for. Smoking, snogging in public, tights...don't ask, meat,bread and most importantly pastry.

This thing here is Burek, its a sort of filo pastry the size of your face, filled with more filo pastry, erm some more pastry, oil and feta cheese and you eat it with yogurt, its a national treasure, kinda like the Serbian version of a British bag of chips. One of these things will keep you going for a whole day....actually there's enough calories for a whole week I reckon. Anyway I had one when I was pretty drunk at the weekend and I've been craving it ever since, so today in a moment of weakness I bought myself one. It actually knocked me out. I don't think I could move for about two hours.

Kalfery Obergs Culture Shock In Serbia

2009-04-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Serbia and I'm having a Kalfery Oberg moment....he was this
Anthropologist guy who came up with the term "Culture Shock", he defines it in four little neat stages, guess which one I'm at!

Honeymoon
Everything in the new culture is exciting and wonderful and just fandabbydozzy and your still comforted by close memories of home. Ahhhh.
Crisis
You become frustrated by the new culture, feel inadequate, and become depressed and angry. At this stage you often glorify your own native culture....or clubs in my case.
Recovery
Slowly one learns to function in the new culture by learning new skills (e.g. language, etc.)
Adjustment
Having learned the skills needed to integrate into the new culture, one once again begins to enjoy the new culture and work within its norms.

So yeh, you got in I'm guess I'm getting a little homesick this week. It hasn't even been a month yet, and I've got about four more to go! Maybe I'm just a bit over whelmed, I'm meeting so many new people with different lifestyles and values, it can frazzle your brain a little bit. Although today I managed to ask for a bus ticket at a kiosk, "četiri ulaznica ugoditi", so I reckon I'm at stage three now, go team!

ATC

2009-04-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

My main reason for coming to Serbia was to do a little volunteer work with a women's non profit organization called the Anti Trafficking Centre, it's main focus, as you can guess by their name, is the eradication of trafficking in human beings, with a special emphasis on the causes of the problem, such as gender-based violence, poverty and unemployment.

Serbia hasn't got the greatest track record when it comes to women's rights lets face it. During the war here, only 10yrs ago, rape was not a consequence but an aim. The Yugoslav wars were based around notion of nationalism and ethnicity, to put it into layman's terms, Bosnians wanted an independent state from Serbia since the people who lived in that area where Bosnian not Serbs. All states, especially nationalistic ones, proclaim women to be the guardians of family, tradition and ethnic values. So by raping a woman the Serbs could destroyed these values, and of course if they became pregnant, the main aim of the process, her child would take on the ethnicity of this father i.e Serbian. So if Bosnia was populated by all Serbians, Bosnians had no claim over the land.

One of the women here gave me a book, Women's Side of War, its hard going, not exactly Cecilia Ahern, anyway here's an extract so you get the picture:

" One soldier asked me why I hadn't moved out of Brcko and I replied I hadn't done anything wrong and had nothing to fear. He replied that my "breed" was wrong and that I should clear out of Serbian territory as soon as possible. Having checked the flat thoroughly, he ordered me into the bedroom..."I'm really fed up of these Muslim c***s, but what needs to be done needs to be done".

Of course these men returned home as heroes as well as rapists, giving rape and violence in the home legitimacy.

So there's one factor, not to mention the fact that the countries infrastructure and economy was fucked, leading organised crime to flourish. Women want new opportunities abroad, and these organisations are quite happy to give them some "work" abroad. So women are taken from the area or brought through it. A lot of them ending up in the U.K to work in the sex industry.

ATC works within the communities, with marginalized groups, such as the Roma gypsies, in schools and at the moment they are organising a film festival. The women here are not the stereotypical hard line feminists that exist in the public imagination. There funny, laid back women, who joke about sex all day.

I can't say I've done much while I've been here with them, I can't expect to only having a small amount of time here. Its just been nice to chat with them, listened to their opinions which is an invaluable insight in itself.

Buna Bucharest

2009-04-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

I wasn't planning on coming to Romania, home of the cheeky girls, Dracula and filming location for Borat. Lets just say I'm keeping it brief.

To the ear its a "Latin island in a Slavic Sea", Romanian actually being the closest living relative to Latin, but due to the Romans quick exit and its geographical isolation, it took a bit of an odd turn when the Slavs invaded.

Its language isn't the only schizophrenic thing about this city. It's wide streets and boulevards are reminiscent of the times when it was called the "Paris of the East", but its now pockmarked with massive, horrifically out of place buildings, erected during the Ceauşescu era.

I best introduce you to this guy, because the presence of Nicolae Ceauşescu and his overbearing wife if felt all over the city. He was the President of Romania from 1965 until 1989 and one the worst, megalomaniac dictators Europe has ever seen.

If Dracula did ever exist here it was in the form of this guy. His regime was designed purely to cater to his whims, whilst his people starved he exported all of Romania's food and were forced to endure only two hours of water and electricity a day. All this going on of course whilst he resigned Bucharest in his own style, destroying 1/5 of the city and built himself the largest building in Europe ( second largest in the world after the Pentagon), The Palace of Parliament. The city is the world's biggest monument to corruption, and wastefulness.

Oh he made his dog a general in the army, made his wife, son, brothers all big party members, wore his suits only once....oh and banned abortion, contraception and divorce, producing child abandonment and a nice big aids epidemic (the regime refused to acknowledge the existence of the disease, and testing was banned) . Nice work!
Eventually people got pretty pissed and in 1989 there was a revolution, during which thousands died, the majority being students...his enemies jumped onto this and he was rounded up and executed on national television. That's what i call reality T.V, why on earth did we make a big fuss over Jade Goody?

It's for these reasons I can't really blame Romanians for being the most miserable people I've ever met. During a conversation about superstitions, the concept of Friday 13th was brought up to which the Romanian replied "something bad happens every day in Romania". I also got chatting to a guy in a bar here, it was about 3am, we had the usual exchange of name, nationality, reasons for traveling, but within seconds this degenerated into question about my emotional motives for traveling, he told me I was clearly an unhappy person if I've come away from home, and my traveling is useless since my values and aspirations were skewed, then when I turned the conversation onto himself, he replies "this conversation is not about me ( dramatic pause) its about you"....having a conversation with him was like talking to a personification of Albert Camus The Fall. Pretty Depressing.

Roma Gypsies

2009-03-29T08:47:00.002-07:00

These are the Roma Gypsies, Europe's largest minority, pretty much hated by everyone. One Romanian girl I spoke with told me that " we young people we don't hate any other nationalities like our parents, just the gypsies".

It's sad to hear, but it's an understandable reaction. I visited a local market and I 've never felt so unsure and uneasy, I felt like a piece of meat being watched by vultures...except vultures just watch...these guys attacked from all sides, baring your way, whispering in your ear, one guy declared to me his was thirsty and tried to grab the bottle of water from my bag.

But these guys have it bad... most of the countries gave them up to the Nazi concentration camps as quick as you can say "heil"...even now they can't get access to education or employment, so you can see where the vicious cycle begins.

Chao, Chao Chickens!

2009-03-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

Bye, Bye Bulgaria

2009-03-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

Fifteen days and four marriage proposals later I'm leaving Bulgaria for Romania.I can say with my hand firmly on my heart that I've had a wonderful experience of the country.

It's a nation that has been fully independent for as long as I've been alive, and like most 20 year olds it's still not sure what do with itself, apart from drinking. The prevailing attitude of the Bulgarian people is epitomized by their love for the nihilistic pleasures of smoking and drinking and the faded totalitarian grandeur of their buildings. As noted by their former PM Filip Dimitor they are suffering from a "passive feeling of total helplessness" . They don't want to move on, neither do they wish to return to their old ways, so they just wait.

Although with this political apathy, comes a sense of acceptance and tolerance, making Bulgarians one of the friendliest nationalities I've ever met. Just for example, while trying to while away the five hours I had to wait for my bus to Bucharest, I decided to use up the last of my Lev and get some coffee, the lady who served me, after finding out that I was traveling alone and didn't speak a word of Bulgarian, went out of her way to help me change my cash, buy my tickets, letting me leave my bag with her instead of leaving it left luggage.

So Bulgaria, ugly place, beautiful people.

Driven Home in an Ambulance

2009-03-26T05:10:00.000-07:00

At the weekend I travelled over to Veliko Turnovo, a town not far from here, which was celebrating something or other about defeating the Turks, or so I was told, because for me, personally, lighting up a castle like a huge Christmas tree doesn't say a lot about the Ottoman Empire.

I went with a friend of Cara and Mark’s, Desso, a professional piercist. I mean who better to party hard with than a piercer?! Wrong. For the majority of the weekend I sat in a park with a load of Goths/Skinheads/Metalheads/Hippy’s getting pissed, which I know sounds fun in theory, but when it’s cold enough for snow to be lurking around the edges of trees and you don’t speak Bulgarian, and those who do speak English have learnt it from American gangsta rap….it can be a bit tedious.

Especially when your all old enough to sit in a bar. No one seemed to understand that sitting on a park bench when you were fourteen was alright, but that was only because a) no one had a free house b) you couldn't get in anywhere.

And then to top it all off in my frost bitten state, I had to sleep on the floor with my coat as a blanket with about nine other people in a really smelly hippy squat/house. I was not a happy bunny.

Maybe I'm being a tad dramatic...I did enjoyed the weekend for all it’s shittiness, and the people I went with looked after me so well! They were so accommodating, to the point where when we arrived back to Popovo, there where no buses to Palamasta, so Desso rang a friend who called is Dad, who was a paramedic, to ask if we could hitch a lift to the village. So I was driven home in an ambulance, which actually made the weekend one of the most interesting I’ve had for a while!

Abandoned House Shopping

2009-03-25T05:06:00.001-07:00

From my blogs, maybe you’ve got onto the fact that I’m living in a semi ghost town. the few people who remain here are in their old age, all of their children having moved into the surrounding towns. Of course this means the population of Palamasta is decreasing year by year, leaving many properties abandoned or being sold for pennies.

Mark and Cara and many of the other English expats here have been quick to jump onto this, buying old houses, doing a little renovation work, and then selling them on to people back home for a profit.

Yesterday we took a little tour of some of the houses, they are unbelievable! They range from absolute carcasses to fully furnished abodes, with silly amounts of land attached to them…one house, previous owner went loopy, leaving a beautiful house, with wardrobes full of clothes, display cases lined with antiques and bric a brac, cupboards and fridges full of rotting food. There house is also attached to a stable, barns and a huge garden…All for 5 thousand pounds.

When we were looking around, Cara said I could help myself to anything I took a fancy to! Now I am the proud owner a collection of scary black and white pictures of people in coffins ( have you seen The Others!?), a traditional hand stitched Bulgarian folk dress made of hemp which Babba said must be over 100ys old and two Lenin pins.

I do feel a sense of sadness about the whole thing though, the empty shops and the crumbling town hall, were they used to stage all there little festivals, huge school buildings, just rotting away…the residents of this village are just watching their way of life and their community fade away. In fact there is a village in Bulgaria on sale for 30,000 pounds…a whole fucking village!

I won’t go into a huge Hardy - esque diatribe about the decline of agriculture and all that, but it is mind blowing.

Weapon Shopping in Popovo Market

2009-03-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went down to the local market in the town not far from our village, and amid the fake Adidas, fruit and ugly knickers I found a full on arsenal of weapons.

From pocket knifes to machetes and pistols to huge hunting guns....guns are actually really heavy, I wanted to take the most amazing Facebook photo of me with some chopper style guns but I thought the guy who ran the stall might threaten me with one of his many weapons. Instead I bought a can of Pepper Spray for 2 pounds and my friend bought a knuckle duster.

Pepper spray is actually illegal in at home, S1 of the firearms act (one of the few things I learnt while working for shitty Cobley's Criminal Defence solicitors)...which seems so stupid...anyway apparently the most effective way to use it is to:

'Aim the pepper spray at the assailant's face or directly in their eyes. Keep your focus on the victim's head and keep the stream flowing steadily.

Release the spray in a side-to-side motion while still aiming at the face and eye area for increased chance of incapacitating the assailant.

Spray the victim with a second burst, then move away. Keep your eyes on the threat and spray again if necessary. Remember that pepper spray takes a few seconds to work, so don't release a second shot too quickly.'

I'm desperate to try this stuff out!

This is a toilet!

2009-03-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

I'll let you figure out how you use this thing...

Being chased by a cow is not fun.

2009-03-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

Today before dinner I went for a lovely jog out around the village and through the fields...genrally having a great time in my own little Paula Radcliffe world, when I pass a group of cows being walked by their farmer. They began to nudge toward me, gaining speed, and then BAM there chasing me down the road. It was not fun. I did however burn a lot of calories.

Trabants - The Communist Car from Hell

2009-03-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

You should check out he cars in this village! They are called 'Trabants' and were produced in former East Germany and exported to countries inside the communist bloc. It followed on from the Nazi's Volkswagon ideal , but it could take years for a Trabant to be delivered from when you ordered it. So in the end only 3 million were made!

They're pretty interesting symbols of the more positive sides of communism but seriously you do not want to cruise around in one of these things. Just look at the dashboard!! Its body is made out of Duroplast, which is a recycled material made of of all sorts; paper, cotton waste from Russia and anything else they could get their hands on making it the first car with a body made of recycled material. Basically your driving around in a cardboard car, you do not want to crash in this thing.

My Rural Bulgarian Blog

2009-03-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

‘There was a travel quiz in England, the 1st prize was one week in Bulgaria, the 2nd was two weeks in Bulgaria’

Zdrazti from Bulgaria! I’m here and I’m alive, my trip to Palamarsta was as smooth as any trip to a rural off the map village can be if you don’t speak the language. I traveled through Sofia, the capital which was literally a shit tip ( the government havn't figured out a way to get rid of the stuff) and now I’m working on a little organic homestay, helping a fantastic English couple, Mark and Cara, who recently moved out here, they bought the most beautiful old bakery, which had been left derelict for the past decade and are working toward making a self sustainable farm on the acre of land they happened to inherit with the place. All for £2000! They’re part of the group of ‘New Bulgarians’, who are lapping up the properties out here, which have been left to rot by the agricultural workers who left in their droves when communism collapsed here in 1989.

The house is nothing but a skeleton, so we’re living next door with our own little Babba (a Bulgarian granny) who slapped my legs when she saw the gap of bare flesh between my leggings and my boots the first day she met me. The day before I got here she and her son had killed a pig, whose skinned head was hanging by the door, and every day we have eggs from the chickens and vegetables ( including nettles) in the garden, homemade cheese, yogurt and cakes. Whatever Babba can’t grow in the winter has been preserved from the summer, the other day, when we were drinking a fruit compot she told us how it was such a treat to have fruit in the winter!!

Our milk and some other bits n bobs is traded or bought from local farms, and then we go into town to the local shop as a last resort. That’s one of the many legacies of communism that you can see here in Bulgaria. During Communism community and friendship were so import and as they stood as one of the few bastions that couldn't be penetrated or shattered. Here you can leave you doors open, wallets on tables and keys in the ignition, as the trust (and lack of advertising) means that greed is one of the few things they can’t cultivate.

I’m really getting into this hippy stuff. People pay good money for the the type of detox I'm going through now. It's so nice working out in the garden with Cara, cooking and looking after the animals...I well reckon I'm a character from a Thomas Hardy novel. I probably smell a bit though. I've been wearing the same outfit going on 2 weeks now…although yesterday I did slip on a little headscarf in an attempt to recreate the Soviet woman look, and it must have worked a treat as Cara told me that one of the villagers has expressed an interest in marrying me. There's no such thing as dating around these parts.

He’s not the first Bulgarian man to take a liking…on my first night here I stayed with a friend of Mark and Cara’s as my room at Babba’s hadn’t been fixed up, as soon as I got there I had a beer with the owner Shtevcho, an ex boxer, wrestler and Jame’s bond baddie Jaws look a like, and went straight up to bed. Half an hour later he knocks on my door asking if my peshka ( little furnace n my room which you have to load up with wood) was ok and starts to tell me it’s too ‘rano’ to go to bed and I should come drink more beer, half an hour later I’m still telling him I’m too tired and sad for beer and I want to sleep...this whole situation my have been exacerbated by the fact that shaking ones head in Bulgaria means yes and nodding it means no, so he probably thought I was playing all coy. In the end I was getting really pissed off and I started making shooing motions, he became really offended so I shook his hand and told him goodnight in response to which he yanked me toward him and went for a cuddle. Well, I let all hell rip loose and I think he got the message as he stomped out of the room , slamming my door and knocking my light out in the process. Maybe it was my overwhelming beauty or just the rakia ( a plum brandy shot they swear by over here) that i could smell on his breath, or just the fact that he hadn’t seen a woman under the age of 65 in this village for 20 odd years. Needless to say I slept with a box of peshka wood up against my door.

The Fear

2009-03-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am 110% shitting myself.

Ever since I got back from Mexico, this trip has been gestating in my mind, and I've been cooing over the thought of its tiny European toes for such a long time, but now it's ready to pop out, I'm can't bear the thought of having another travel baby. What if this ones deformed? Or turns out ginger?

I should have learnt more Bulgarian. It bares no resemblance to Latin and every word looks like a Countdown contestant forgot to ask Carol for any vowels. How am I supposed to pronounce this shit?

Not to mention the Abbey telling during an e-banking inquiry that my card will be blocked if I try to use it abroad and I should have told the Madrid Fraud Authority ( whose office is conveniently closed ). Who the fuck are the Madrid Fraud Authority?! I'll have to call them tomorrow from Bulgaria. Super.

Breathe, in and out, in and out.

I'll be fine, I'm sure, I've been though the worst, missing my connecting flight and sleeping on the floor of DF airport with one eye open and my bag wrapped around my neck for fear of being mugged, wasn't a high point of my life. Not only that, but I attempted to snuggle up to a couple spooning by a plant in the International lounge so I didn't look like such an easy target, oh the look on their faces when they woke up.

Canned Heat - On the Road Again.mp3