Europe 08

When in Rome... Avoid the Romans

fjdukes — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:24:00 GMT

Well I'm posting this from the good ole US of A. The last two weeks of our trip were, as expected, hectic. We arrived in Rome on Friday morning, the 18th, after spending the night at the airport in Sofia, not as bad as it sounds. Unfortunately when we arrived and called the place where we would be staying we were told the shuttle may arrive at 8:30am, if not then 10:30am. As we would soon learn to be the norm the shuttle arrived at 9:20... more on "italian time" later. We stayed at this campground/country club, I haven't seen anything like it before they have a few restaurants, two pools, athletic facilities, two night clubs and a few pubs. After setting up our tents I headed straight for the city. I don't know if it is designed this way intentionally but going to see the colosseum via the metro (subway) involves quiet a shock. When you arrive at the "Collosseo" stop walk up the stairs and out the gates there it is, directly in front of you, so high you cant see over it and so wide you cant see around it. For the most part it looks exactly like it does in the pictures we have all seen but you really cant appreciate the grandeur and placement of it within the scheme of ancient Rome. The ancient section of the city is fairly intact and free from modern structures, from the right vantage points with a little imagination you can see how the city would have stretched out in front of you in ancient times. The forum and the colosseum are directly adjacent to each other and both are still under archeological excavation, which I suppose adds a bit to the dust bowl effect the city had when windy. When I got back to the campground I found that a friend of ours, Ron, had arrived. He managed to arrange to DJ at the nightclub in the country club in exchange for what is essentially an all inclusive paid vacation. Fortunately for us this includes the use of his own private 4 bed bungalow, which we quickly moved into... hmmmmm tent and no AC VS Bed and AC... really tough decision. The next day I again headed into the city to see the Spanish steps (a Huge staircase lined w/ flowers and a chapel at the top) very picturesque and the gorgeous, but tourist infested, Trevi fountain, which legend has it, if ones throws a coin into, you assure you return to Rome ...of course I did, a 1 cent bulgarian coin, equivalent to 8/10 of a US penny ... the legend doesn't say what kind of coin it has to be :) After a little souvenir shopping I also saw the Republic and Termini Station, quiet nice and modern compared to what we've seen in the past few weeks. We decided that saturday would be our big night out in Rome and headed to a huge night club on the beach just outside the city. Apparently some of the night clubs in the city center close during the summer as everyone is in the beach area. After using Ron's DJ credentials to get past the doorman/line (we weren't exactly dressed in nightclub attire) we followed him as we cut past what must have been at least 300 people waiting in line to pay cover, essentially beating the italians at their own game, they DO NOT stand in an orderly line for anything, they are simply to cool for it. The club was nicely laid out and had a lot of different settings and three separate areas w/ different music in each. The italians however were incredibly rude, not only to us, but as we observed, to each other. The music was also pretty lame compared to all the other cities we had been in, even if we couldn't understand the words, you know what a cheesy pop song sounds like in any language. It was a good laugh though when they broke out en mass with synchronized dances for each specific song (you know, middle school style, Ehhhh Macarena!) . By far the most entertaining part of the night was when Ron and I (OK and even Dennis once, maybe, after quiet a bit of chiding from us) started to ask random people "Do you have my waffles?". No we hadn't had to much to drink, in fact only one, the drink were exorbitantly expensive at this place. We figured if they were going to play dumb about not speaking english (I was told by an italian they have all taken several years of it) then we were going to have a little fun with them. The idea being if you ask a really silly question and they smile or laugh, you know they understand, even if they refuse to admit it, although we did get a few to admit it. I guess its not fair to label the Italians as lazy and/or rude, it just doesn't seem to be in the culture to work hard and be hospitable, not in Rome anyways. I mean if you ask the staff anywhere a question they will not even hisitate to answer "I dont know", not "I'll check", not "I'll look into it", not "let me talk to my manager". You need to ask for all of those things to be done specficly, otherwise they will repeat "I dont know" until the cows come home, late of course, I mean the cows in Italy are on Italian time, ie half an hour late and not ready to work for another half an hour. I know you might think I'm being a little harsh on them, but for example after only four days we were honestly waaaaaay to happy over something we take for granted in the states as when our airport shuttle actually showed up on time, I mean he did stop after two minutes of driving for an 8 minute smoke break, but it wasn't like anyone had a plane to catch. The next day was sunday and I headed off to the Vatican for mass. Unfortunately Benedetto, as the italians call him, was out of town, hanging out "down under" for the week. Either way, holy father or not, the Vatican was amazing, it makes the collesuem look like childs play. San Pietro's square is the largest in Rome and so large it was easily spotted from the plane when flew out. There is an egyptian obelisk in the center of the square, which I assumed was a copy, its not. The Romans brought several of them from ancient Egypt, two real, and several copies still stand in the city today. St Pietro's Basilica sits at one end of the square and is flanked by two curved rows of collumns, huge and white, roman style, of course. I managed to catch the last mass of the day, which although in Italian was the same old song and dance. They block off the front of the basilica for mass which given the number of tourists in the back I thought might not be enough. Turns out the place is soooo huge you cant even hear the tourists from the front during mass. The alter was surprisingly simple although the chair of St Piertro flanked by golden angels behind it was quiet grand and magnificent. The cathedral is decorated from floor to ceiling (oh and those are decorated as well) with beautiful works of art, some of them by Micohelangelo himself. Speaking of Micohelangelo, in a bit of a miscalculation on my part I chose to visit the Vatican on a sunday, on which the Museums and Sistine chapel are closed. Ahh well, there's always next time. Well now that I'm back in the states and I've got a decent net connection I'm going to put some more pics up, also I think I'll be adding two more posts, one for London and a final best/worst list with some closing remarks.

-fjd

Can you say Tourist Trap?

fjdukes — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:22:00 GMT

Well I've got some time to kill so I'm gonna make a shorter post and put up some pictures. We're made our reurn to civilization in Varna, Bulgaria. Kinda... the road here is porbably, scratch that, without a doubt, the worst road we have had the misfortune to travel on. A one hour trip left me with a backache for the remainder of the day. Fortunatly once you near the acual city of Varna the situtaion improves and the taxi drivers here seem particularly adept at dodging the few but massive potholes. They like to decorate the road surface here in Europe with lines and things like "STOP" and "NO TURNS", I say decorate as they seem to have absolutly no effect on the manner in which people drive. We are staying at a hostel one a large sloping hill maybe half a mile from the coast of the Black Sea located in between the city of Varna and the resort area north of the city "The Golden Sands". Varna is probably the most developed city we have seen in a few weeks (since Budapest), but is amazingly cheap if you are able to avoid being scammed by the locals. The local tourist industry seems to think that because we are western tourists that we must have empty heads and full pockets. The audacity of it all can be alarming, they will tell you "No, we are out of that beer" and then suggest one 2-3 times the price of the one you asked for... all while the cooler w/ the beers 10ft away is in full sight and stocked w/ the beer you requested. You have to negotiate a price with the taxi drivers before getting in as well, we paid 10 lev (about 8$) for our ride into the city last night and the first and second drivers we approached for a ride home last night attempted to charge us 30 and 25 lev respectively, we accepted the thrid cabbies offer of 12 lev, I mean the sun was coming up :) We may be going spear fishing tomm or the day after, we'll probably be staying in Varna utill Tuesday when we leave for the Bulgarian Capital, Sofia, which has some amazing archtecture. On friday we will leave for what is the personal highlight of my trip, ROME!

-fjd

Camping is "in-tents"

fjdukes — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 22:56:00 GMT

I realize its been a while since I've posted, we've been bumming around on a few beaches here on the coast of the Black Sea in Romania and there is not a whole lot to report. This portion of our trip is to be a slight vacation from any real sights and from spending. A draft beer is 80 cents on the beach (compare that to 8$ in Ireland and 5$ in Miami) We were in Constanta, specifically spending most of out time in the resort area Mamia, and we are now in Vama Veche which is south of Constanta. In Constanta we were staying with the family of one of Dennis' friends from home. They were extremely nice and were very hospitable people. The mother of the family cooked us huge breakfasts and dinners everyday, and if we were home for lunch I'm sure there would have been lunch too. It got to a point where we would be quiet when we got up because "Breakfast is ready!", as we would be told every morning, might be a little before we were actually physically and mentally up to the task (when meals are this large two a day will do, we didn't eat lunch the whole time we were there). We spent everyday at the beach resort area of Mamaia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamaia), its quite built up and reminds me of a smaller Miami, the residents I told this to were very happy to here this. The resort area is filled with tourists from all around Europe, el Presidente Bush even came here to meet the President of Romania instead of the capital city Bucharest. Which having seen both I can say was a good move, Bucharest, we felt, was a hole, and the residents of Romania seem to agree. I think I took one picture there, of the 2nd largest (not tallest) building in the world, our Pentagon is the largest. The building was built by their former dictator to please his ego, unfortunately the building is much to large to use and maintain so portions of it are unused and in disrepair. Meh, it was just a stopping over point and seeing something like that makes you appreciate what you have a lot more.

Getting back to current location, Vama Veche, it is as the our host in Constanta explained a "Wild" Beach. The word applies in every sense. Want to camp on the beach? No problem, just pitch your tent (and we did). Want to cook w/ a fire on the beach? No problem, light it up (and we did). Have a beer on the beach? No problem, buy one from the bar on the beach or go buy a 3 liter bottle of beer for 3$ 20ft from the beach (and we did). Want to wear nothing at all on the beach? No problem, strip down. (and we did NOT). The very fact of our shorts go below our knees is enough for most Europeans to know we're American (which is apparently a rare thing here). We're currently at a hotel (24$ a night, a block from the beach!) as last night we were unfortunately out on the beach, in our tents, for one of the worst storms the area has seen in a while (a truck was blown off the road and into a building). Speaking of which, the first rule of camping on the beach is to know where your rain cover is and how to put it on in the dark, in the wind, and right side up. Second rule, everything that doesn't get along with water (documents, passport, electronics) goes in one of the 40 or so plastic ziplock bags you "may" have "acquired" from airport security in "London" :) Third rule, if the tent isn't cutting it, open an umbrella, yes, inside, it works, I got a good two more hours of sleep doing this. The hotel we are in is nice and clean but a bit small. It has one odd feature that I have not seen anywhere else. The sink in the bathroom has one of those heads that people have in their kitchens that you can pull out and its on a hose so you can use it as a sprayer. Well... that's the shower. Essentially the sink and toilet are in one huge shower that they call the bathroom. Alas, it works out fine and there is plenty of hot water, something not to assumed when taking a shower here. We used a public shower the other day and it had two settings, cold and so cold it takes your breath away.

We are departing tomorrow for Varna, Bulgaria by bus...we think. We still need to work out some of the details but its only 4pm here so no biggie. Ciao!

-fjd

Pictures!

fjdukes — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 04:52:00 GMT

Pictures! Ill try to caption them later. I've had it with this computer.

http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=localhoax&P=&AID=5346856&Show=Y

-fjd

I Vant to Seeee your Passport

fjdukes — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 03:39:00 GMT

Well it seems my readership is demanding more content and I must oblige them. Vienna was swarmed with Croatians and Turks for the Euro Cup football (soccer) matches. They have sectioned off large portions of the city to accommodate the fans in areas they call "Fan Zone", kinda like they did for live aid in Philly, tons of 50ft high TVs for people who cant get tickets the match. We really only spent one day tromping around Vienna and looking back on it I wish it was more. Alas, our free four star hotel in Bratislava was calling our name. We did manage to see the Imperial palace and gardens which were grand on a scale hard to imagine. In the city center the majority of the sights were either blocked off or difficult to see because of the Fan Zone but getting to see the excitement of the crowds during the matches was worth it. After seeing the sites we went to an Austrian hippy party where everyone sat on the floor and they filled the tubs w/ way to many cans of beer and not nearly enough ice. ick warm beer. They really don't drink anything ice cold over here, ice is scarce here and we actually enjoy having it when we do, silly, I know, but when I get home all I want is 2 glasses of ice and enough wawa lemonade tea so I don't have to leave my bed (and by proxy the house) for 3 days. We traveled to Bratislava on bus, a very quick trip as it and Vienna are the two closest capital cities in the world. Our arrival at the train station marked the first time we were really, really, really, confused about how to get into the center of town. It doesn't help when the bus route from the station travels back across the bridge you came into the city on, through Soviet style housing blocks (read housing projects) back across another bridge and then finally into the center of town. Bratislava is known for being cheap and well..... it wasn't. Its actually like Philly in the sense that although geographical the city is rather large the portion of the city which as a visitor is actually worth seeing is rather small, I mean you can do it in a day, easy. The Slovak people were rather nice but businesses engage in some pretty harsh price gouging, they can, do and will blatantly charge you more for things just because you are a foreigner. Outside of the free hotel (no pool? four stars? umm... not so much) Bratislava was really a waste of our time. We traveled to Budapest on a completely full bus (apparently everyone else was as eager to leave as us, luckily we bought our tickets in advance as a few people were left behind). Upon arrival we had a few hours to kill so we ate and camped out at the nearest Burger King. They have a few things on the menu we don't in the states but I guarantee you that a whopper tastes exactly like it does in the states. They take their American fast food chains here pretty seriously, all the McDs and Burger kings we've been to here have been by far (including the bathrooms) nicer than their counterparts in the states. Apparently they actually pay pretty well too for local standards. Gyros seem to be the fast food of choice here, they are kinda like hot dogs stands in new york, cheap and everywhere, a good gyro goes for 500 hungarian forints, so around 3.33$ USD. Speaking of which, Dennis, trying to be "Knowledgeable" or something, asked one gyro vendor for tzatziki (a cucumber yogurt sauce that is served in Greek restaurants) to this we got a very curt and exact answer "No. We are Turks". Yeah... I'm losing track of how many locals Dennis has been scolded by. I think it all went down hill when we had to return to check additional bags after half the things he tried to take onto the plane in Ireland went allowed. On our first night in Budapest our host gave us a brief tour of the Castle in Buda (Buda and "Pehst", as the locals prefer to say, were once separate cities on each side of the river) and the riverfront in "Pehst". Budapest is famous for its Turkish style bath houses w/ "healing" thermal mineral springs. We went to one of the oldest in the city and it was quite nice. They have modernized the tradition and for instance the "baths" we went to were the size of large swimming pools, each with a different temperature, hot, medium and cold. Unfortunately I'm still peeling from the sunburn we got that day. One of the best nightclubs here is actually on an island in the center of the river, interesting, but as it is expensive by local standards you get a lot of snobbish people who are paying a whopping 3$ a beer. heh. We're on a train as I write this, our longest travel of any sort, 15 hours. Were headed through the heart of Transylvania to (possibly) visit Dracula's castle. Well actually we're headed to Bucharest, the capital and largest city of Romania but Vlad's (Drac's) Castle is only 30 minutes away. From Bucharest we'll be headed to the western coast the Black Sea to do some beach camping :) From there we'll travel down the coast for about two weeks and eventually head inwards towards Sofia Bulgaria for our flight to Rome on the 18th. Rome for four nights and then we return to London for 5 nights. Then its back to the good old US of A. Well I'm gonna try and get some Zs. I don't think Vampires bother with trains :)

HALLO! (zee German for Hello) from WIEN (Vienna)

fjdukes — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:50:00 GMT

We're in Vienna, Austria, we arrived from Prague by bus last night. Our last few days in Ireland, and our three great days in Prague, were a bit hectic but very much enjoyed. I would say that until half way into the first week we still had the feeling of being out of place but now we seem to have settled into our constantly changing surroundings, if that makes any sense. We spent our last few nights in Ireland in the southern city of Cork before departing early Sunday morning to tour Dublin (working on getting some pics up, promise). Our flight to Prague was so early Monday that the best option was to sleep in the airport the night before. The buses from Dublin city proper to the airport in the morning do not start running until after our flight departed (Cabs are exorbitantly expensive). Anyways there were quite a few people sleeping in the airport and that combined w/ sleeping on the flight plus taking a nap in one of Prague's city parks after a few (kinda) early pilsners everything worked out fine :) When we arrived nearly everything in the airport was in Czech and English making us think, well hope, that navigating the public transportation system wouldn't be such a chore. We purchased some transit passes and headed out to the bus stop where we fell into a bit of luck. It seems the best way to identify a traveler's nationality is by the brand of their backpacks. Just the logo alone is enough for a lot of people to know we are American. I was trying to pack my carry on back into my backpack when in a distinctly American voice asked if I had been in Europe long. As it turns out the guidebook I was carrying was in part written by the girlfriend of the recent Harvard Grad were sitting next to. With a bit (ok a lot) of his help we arrived in the city after just one fairly painless transfer. After the price shock of Ireland it is a bit of a relief to find out that 200$ US Dollars is about 3000 Czech crowns and a beer is about 20 crowns. Everything you need is very cheap (Food, Drinks, Transit Tickets) everything you don't (Fancy Clothes, Electronics) are very expensive. Imagine 1/3 the price you do for food in US but twice the price for electronics of half the quality. Prague is an amazingly beautiful city that I can imagine you could never see all of in three lifetimes let alone three days. There is one of the largest Castles in the world here and it sits up on a picturesque hill above the rest of the city. Architecture is part of everything here and no city I have ever seen is even close in the level of detail and sheer quality of design. Almost everyone we met spoke English quite well, although the number of tourists here in the summer outnumbers residents 9 to 1 in the summer. If there are three things I will remember about the my time in Prague its that they love their Foosball, Beer, Dogs and 6 month old American pop hits, ok that's four, but remember all those songs they played on the radio until the point you were sick of them? Well they are just getting into them here. Well that's all for now, this is our first day in Vienna and the city is buzzing with the Eurocup football (soccer) tournament. If the internet here is fast enough I will get some pictures up soon. I'm also working on getting a phone card as the call shops that were all over the place in Ireland aren't very common in Prague or Vienna it seems.

Note: We are now in Bratislava, Slovakia at a four star hotel which we are "reviewing", well our host in prauge is reviewing it for his magazine and we are the photographers :) I'll post some updates tomm and pictures now that we have a good net connection and place to stay for a few days.

Green, Green, Green

fjdukes — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:15:00 GMT

Sorry it took a bit to get this thing started, we haven't been in one place long enough to get anything done. We're now in Cork in the south of Ireland, we spent weds night in Galway near the western coast and the night before that (Tues) in Dublin. I need to get our photos organized and then I'll be uploading them tomm (fri). The cities are nice, public transportation is a bit confusing, however efficient and cheap (cheaper if you know how to get on and off before they check for tickets :) don't worry, you can always play the dumb tourist and offer to buy a ticket on the spot.) So far we've spent more time on buses than exploring but the countryside is beautiful. Its pretty much like you have seen before (my crappy pics don't do it justice, I'll get better tho) there is every shade of green, cows, sheep, horses. A few things are different here, and everything is more expensive (McDs "Euro Saver Menu" is 2 euro (3.20$ ouch!) for a double cheeseburger (1$ back home). Driving on the other side of road is a bit odd, and unnerving at times as you really feel like an accident is about to happen every time someone makes a turn. We saw the "tallest building" in Ireland today, which I must say is a bit deceiving, for one its only 20 or so stories tall and there are several churches in the country w/ spires taller, go figure. Also it doesn't get dark until around 10pm so its been throwing us off a bit. We usually dont head out for the night at home till 10/11ish and the vast majority of the bars here close at 11/12.

We'll be in Cork for a few days before heading back to Dublin (we made one big triangle around the country) and from Dublin we catch a flight to Prauge and really get this trip started. Ireland is sorta our starter country, we've got enough things to try and figure out so its nice to start in a place where everyone at least speaks English, even if they have to say everything 3 or 4 times for you to understand them. Speaking of which we were waiting in the park for our bus to come and we randomly started talking to this very nice older gentleman (Frank), who then offered to buy us our first pint of Guinness in Ireland (momentous occasion). Needless to say we stayed for another, yum, and caught a later bus. In other news I'm working out a way to call home cheaply, we were planning on using the cell phone we have but its exorbitantly expensive to call the states from it. Anyways I'm gonna get a shower and some much needed sleep. Hope everything is well back home, laters.

-fjd

FLIGHT CANCELED

fjdukes — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 01:59:00 GMT

FLIGHT CANCELED ...not something you want to see in your email two days before a trip you've spent months planning and quit your job to go on. Apparently Zoom, our carrier to the UK, has canned our flight home due to "operational reasons", oh well guess we'll have to stay indefinitely... yeah, right. They have booked us on a flight due to return the 27th of July. In a way its good news, we get a few more nights in london, I just hope we're not broke by then... mom, dad, anyone... hint, hint.

-fjd

London is calling

fjdukes — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 17:01:00 GMT

First Post! Sorry, had to.

Got my guidebook today, weighed the pack, its up to 22lbs, not too bad. The bike race and our departure are rapidly approaching.