Serbia: Queue jumpers and being perved on by non - pervy - perves

You may be wondering if we even enjoyed Serbia by the title, let me reassure you we did!

Belgrade

We started in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade.

This probably brings to mind similar images for you as it did for me, that of war and destruction as a result of the Balkan wars in the 1990s.  I half expected to feel slightly unsafe, however we were pleasantly surprised to see Belgrade a very clean and modern city, with only the odd dilapidated building. (Having said that, when we did see one, it really was falling apart.  It looked like the bomb only hit it yesterday!).  Otherwise we had a very pleasant time wandering around, not to mention with the spectacular views of the confluence of the Danube and Sava river from the hilltop near the city centre.

The river in the foreground is the Sava, the background is the Danube.

Random bits!
Before I go on I thought I would just introduce you all to two great new discoveries on mine.  The first, below, is CHOCOLATE Philadelphia! I actually bought this in Sofia, Bulgaria, but I have been trying to ration it until now, using it only for breakfasts and emergencies.  Here I am eating it with my morning croissant.

 Second of all, allow me to introduce Gill's ingenious invention to make her less robbable (those are her exact words).  As an avid book worm, she recently purchased an electronic book, or to be precise, a kindle.  The rest below, should be self explanatory.

I was gutted when I saw this as she had actually offered to make me one also, but as I already had a cover I said no.  This was clearly as error, because this is genius!

Queue jumpers

Now back to Belgrade.  The free walking tour provided its insights into what life must have been like during the 90s, with stories of hyper inflation akin to that of Zimbabwe.  Check out these 50 and 5 billion Dinar notes!

The tour guide also explained that due to people having to queue for hours upon end just for a loaf of bread (which by the way, the 500 billion dinar note was just enough to buy!) people in Serbia are notoriously bad for queue jumping, and we can certainly testify to that!  I suppose our Britishness (and therefore fondness for orderly queues) combined with the Serbian disregard for queuing did not make a good mix!


Being perved on by non-pervy-perves

Another activity whilst in Belgrade was an evening dip in the Danube! Yes you heard right, I swam in the Danube! Ha!
There is a little island with a pedestrian bridge across it, and there there is a sandy beach, fully equipped with volleyball nets and outdoors showers n' all.

The wonderful evening dip was however slightly marred by the punishment inflicted upon me by the mosquitos.  Here is my leg post-danube-dip. :(




After a swim against the current (I didn't get anywhere) and admiring the astounding sunset, we were then approached by a Serbian man, (in Serbian- there aren't really many tourists so for the first time people actually first addressed us in their native language).

It was a surreal experience because it seemed like he was chatting us up, but there were none of the usual lines 'soooo do you have boyfriend? You very pretty ladies.  You like Serbian man?'
Nope none of that, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to practise his English! He even beckoned his friend over, who also just wanted a chat.  If we hadn't been so suspicious (and I hadn't also been feeling rather vulnerable in my bikini!) this might have even passed off for a genuine friendly conversation.  However they then invited us to dinner, to which we replied 'maybe' in as much of a non committal tone as possible, and then slinked off to the changing rooms and escaped.

Several other encounters of a similar nature led us to believe that Serbians clearly just have the gift of the gab when it comes to the ladies.  Avoiding the sleaziness definitely works- men, take note!

Novi Sad

Our second destination in Serbia was Novi Sad, home to a collection of very old (dating back to 12th century I believe) monasteries.  This was also very beautiful, with a fortress on the top of the hill affording stunning views of the city, especially at night!

In Novi Sad we did not encounter any perves, but did have a run in with a moody bus driver who dropped us off in the middle of nowhere (and nearly didn't give us our change! humph).

Below right was the monastery 'stop', with only a signpost and nothing else.  Considering this was supposed to be a tourist spot, we were expecting a little more!

The weather was blisteringly hot (the bus was a sauna), and we could not find the monastery.  We were grumpy due to the mean bus driver, and had no idea how to get back as there seemed to be no sign of a bus stop/station/nothing.  We had reached such a point of desperation that we even considered hitch hiking back (Mum- don't worry we didn't! )

Fortunately, the nicest lady in the world happened to be sitting nearby, (which was handy) who gave us drinks, shade, showed us where the monastery was, and believe it or not, drove us back to Novi Sad when we were done! (That is a good half an hour journey by the way).
So, thanks to the nicest lady in the world (she really was), Serbia was redeemed once again :)

Here is the unfortunately ever so slightly underwhelming monastery:

Pretty, but upon our arrival we realised we were actually only allowed inside the church! doh.  Everything was simply the monk's 'bed chambers', which was obviously off limits!

Slovenia was our next stop, but that is for next time!

xxxx

Ball games in Romanian, with Dracula thrown in for good measure

Hello again,

We have moved around so much I guess it is pretty hard keeping up with us, but we are now in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.  Since the last update we have done a whirlwind tour of Romania and then spent a day relaxing in Varna, Bulgaria, to recuperate.  Haha, I suppose I'm not gonna get much sympathy for needing a holiday from my holiday am I? It's a tough life :)

Orphanage

The Romania trip started in Oradea where we visited an orphanage called 'Caminul Felix', which I had heard about.  What a change, from wandering the beautiful streets of the capitals of Europe, to spending a day with loads of Romanian orphans.  Here is me doing some colouring with Luci, left, and Anna, right.

The inspiring thing is, is that this is no ordinary orphanage.  When a child comes to Caminul Felix they join a family, that's to say, parents (a 'Mum' and 'Dad'), and approximately 17 other siblings!  The idea is similar to adoption, just on a much bigger scale.  They are officially a charity, and exist mostly from donations.  If you are looking for something to support, I can definitely recommend them, because it works! I met people who had grown up there and can vouch for how well it functions and treats everybody involved.

Check out their website, they have even set up another one in Thailand and are in the process of setting another up in Zambia(?!):

http://www.caminulfelix.ro/index.php?hl=en

We spent the day with two families, just playing games with kids.  And along the way we learnt a ton of Romanian vocabulary; mostly colours although we did master the numbers from 1 to 10.:)

On the right is the first family;  the hungriest small children I have ever met in my life.  You wouldn't have any trouble getting these kids to finish their plates!  One little girl admitted to having eaten 2 corn on the cobs and 5 peaches, before eating dinner! And the Dad said they normally say fewer than they have actually eaten! I was utterly gobsmacked.

On the left are Gill and I with the second family (not even all of them!) worn out after an afternoon of running around and ball games.

Castles

Next stop, Brasov in the infamous Transylvania - for none other but Dracula's Castle! (below left)

We also visited Peles Castle (above) with our hostel friends Yo Jin, Tamara and Tom, an art nouveau (ish)  extravaganza of very tasteful decoration and furniture.

    
To the left is a ruinous castle, Rasnov, -Twilight anyone??! (-Mum - that is a film about vampires and the scenery looks like that in the film:) )

Danube Delta

After moving further east we arrived in Mahmudia (officially the middle of nowhere), to get a glimpse of the incredible Danube Delta.

Here are a few snapshots of the breath taking scenery that awaited us, including a flock of pelicans that we drove through in the boat (don't worry they all scattered!)

Beach day!

An extremely complicated and stressful bus journey later and we were in Varna, Bulgaria.

Thankfully in Varna, there is no castle, fortress, cathedral, old town, market, shopping centre, nothing.  Ok maybe I lied about about the shopping centre.  But the point is there was pretty much nothing to see, which suited us just fine as by this time we were feeling rather 'castled-out', as you can probably imagine.  We therefore enjoyed an entire day lounging on the beach, and taking a dip in the Black Sea (and guilt free, as there really was nothing else to do!)  Here is a photo of some other hostel friends paddling:

Admittedly, we did see a little bit of traditional folk dancing, so we didn't do exactly nothing.  There were representatives from Bosnia Hercegovina, Turkey, Slovakia, Ukraine and Bulgaria.  I'll put in a photo of the Bulgarians as they were the ones we were there to see, but honestly, I have to admit that it was the Ukrainians that were the stars of the show!I would put a video up, but having tried 77 times already with computers all around Europe, I am finally giving up.  Never mind, I'm sure you have a fair idea of some cool Ukrainian dancing!

The Bulgarians, waving their flag :)

Trains, trains and more trains

The train from Varna to Sofia was highlighted in the Rail map for having nice scenery, and quite right too.  Here are some pictures of the journey:

 (this was my 'I'm feeling arty' one)

And in case you were all wondering, following on from the last post regarding the crooked Romanian ticket inspectors, we did make it to Oradea fine in the end.  Although we were then told at the train station that our train the next day which left at 23:00 was apparently not a sleeper train!  Having been told horror stories of Romanian trains with carriages with only wooden benches, we were rather worried.... Fortunately it turned out that it WAS a sleeper train, only you weren't able to BOOK it in advance.  Ah all was lost in translation, as usual :)

So for clarification, I am now an expert in speaking English to people who don't speak English, and understanding languages I don't speak at all, such as Romanian and Bulgarian.  Plus, did you know that in Bulgaria, a shake of the head means yes, whilst a nod means no?! Could this get more confusing??!

Until next time :)

xxxxxx

Funny story

Our first day in Romania.

Train journey- Budapest to Oradea, Romania.  We are relaxed and enjoying ourselves, particularly the sight of the real live 'fat controller', an intimidating passport control office with a pistol and brown leather satchel that looks like it's been taken from a world war 2 film, and real live gypsies, actually wearing headscarves (I didn't think they actually wore them! lol).

Great start, we miss our stop.  We are just sitting there on our train, whilst it is at a station for about 15 minutes, waiting for it to carry on, as there is another hour left in our journey time.

However as we pull off and I see our station name glide by, we realise we have just been very silly!  Time zone. The time is. one. hour. forward. gah! We did not even check which station we were at, what a rookie error.

We frantically communicate our predicament to train staff who advise us the next stop is only half an hour away, where we should get off and get a train going back the other way.  Fine, phew, no problem.
When the train  comes to a stop we can see a building but no platform, so curiously press the 'door open' button, to find it actually does open, onto the rails!

I really have been spoilt with all this platform malarky haven't I?

We hesitantly make our way across some concrete in the middle of the railway and head towards the building by the side.

The conductor, unsurprisingly, finds us particularly amusing.

We quickly realise again, that we are in the middle of nowhere....  Basically tumbleweed country.  Not a soul to be seen, except the odd gypsy going on a leisurely stroll down the railway lines, as you do.

Here are some photos and a video for your amusement:

I ask Gill, 'do you think we have to flag down the train like a bus?'  She assures me we won't have to, although not with a lot of confidence.

We do eventually board the train that comes (10 minutes late at that, but I suppose we should not be complaining).  We confidently provide our interail passes to the ticket inspector as he does the rounds, who returns them with a shake of the head, saying, ' No no, this private train'.

Gah!

Ok fine, so we'll pay for our tickets then, whatever.

Do I have Romanian Lei on me? No.  Does Gill ? No.  I blame Sainsburys! And M&S! (they didn't have any if you're wondering why haha).

'Ok, you pay 2 Euros'.

We fumble for our euros, well, at least Gill does, as I spent all mine..... haha whoops.
Evidently however, she took too long as he then added

'3 euros'

She handed over two 2 euro coins, which he then handed to an apparently random lady behind him?!

We then sat there for a while whilst they filled out 'forms', when Gill plucked up-

'Um, so, is there um, any change?'

'No Gill', I answered preemptively, I don't think there's going to be any change, as they shrugged their shoulders and moved on....

Haha, the comedy value.

The same guys also ran past us again later on saying hurriedly
'You very pretty ladies!'

We laughed A LOT. :)

Shakespeare in Slovakian? No worries!

Hello again people,

I am actually now in Oradea, Romania, but we're gonna go back a few days and learn about the goings on in Bratislava (Slovakia) where we were for 2 days, and then Budapest for 3 days.

Similar to Prague and Krakow, Bratislava is another very beautiful city.  Not quite as extensive as Prague, but pretty all the same.  Here is a good example of one of the many beautiful buildings:

(what we called the marshmallow church!)

(note the famous UFO bridge tower in the background!)

It is worth noting that by this time, both Gill and I were absolutely pooped! (as in, very tired, haha).
So, it was rather convenient that as it happens, there is not actually that much to do in Bratislava!

This did puzzle us I must admit, and I shall explain why.
Prague is obviously a massive tourist attraction, so we are assuming this contributes to it's relatively strong economic status.  Krakow, did not seem to be as well off as Prague in several noticeable ways, one of them being the lack of English spoken by the natives.
Slovakia however, even though it did not have much of a developed tourist industry, seems to be doing very well nevertheless!  Almost everyone spoke English, and that's to say even your average Joe in a shop, (one lady even responded 'of course!' when I asked her whether she spoke English haha).  The prices in the shops were also not that different from what I would expect in the UK, not to mention the fact that they had most of our UK chain stores (Debenhams, H&M, even Next!)

Slovakians were also the friendliest.  :)  For those whose English was not so good, they really tried anyway!  Something that we really appreciated after a stream of grumpy people in train stations. :(

Anyway, back to the itinerary!

We made a bee line for the free tour.  Good stuff, learnt lots about Communism.

We also happily stumbled across a free concert!  In the main square there was an orchestra playing some classic tunes, which definitely put my musical knowledge to the test, but once we eventually found the programme I discovered I wasn't far off (with regards to guessing composers etc).  Yes! I've still got it ;)

Having learnt that we could not longer travel by boat to Budapest along the Danube because it just cost too much, we instead did a 45 minute boat tour, so I can still say I have been on the Blue Danube! (FYI, it's not that blue).
(View from boat)

We had a stroll around the beautiful Castle, which was to our delight and confusion, completely free from the tourist hordes!  This was where we came back later and watched a Slovakian version (and translation!) of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure', much to the Slovakians' bewilderment!
Apart from the token Polish word and 'Do you speak English' that must have been added out of artistic license (?!), no, we did not understand a word.  However with the aid of spark notes revision summaries we could at least follow the plot!  Did I also mention that the play was performed in the Castle?  Specifically in the central and open air courtyard.  The white castle made a fantastic background, here is what it looked like in the day, we were through that big main entrance for the performance.

Four hours later on a train and we were in Budapest.  To my distress and deepest loss, Gill was visiting a friend in the south of Hungary for two days, so we waved goodbye as she boarded a second train (not entirely in the certainty that it was the right one but now I can confirm it was!) and I had the next two days by myself.  But it's ok, sniff, (plus it was my choice to stay! lol) I have had a wonderful time.

As another aside, I will mention that Budapest, on the surface at least, was not nearly as pretty as the last few places we had been to!  In fact, the poverty was a lot more overt here than anywhere else, and we were greeted by beggars and warnings againts pickpockets, which was worrying knowing that I would be here by myself.  However, since I have got to know the city more, I can confirm that my reservations have subsided, and having since dug a little deeper, I have discovered that Budapest is a city rich in culture and architectural beauty, even if it is not immediately noticable like in Prague etc.

With my two new friends from the hostel, we headed to a Hungarian Folk dance concert, which was flippin' awesome!
There was a heck of a lot of boot and thigh slapping, yowling and rhythmic stomping; all very exciting if you ask me.  I unfortunately however decided it would be a good idea to NOT bring my camera. Duh, what a fool.  Of course you can take pictures, it's a tourist's concert.  Never mind, so with the help of my trusty friend youtube, I think I may actually have successfully found a video of the same group!  Click below for some gypsy fun:

http://youtu.be/SmJNc74cdDM

The next day was spent dragging another friend from the hostel around Budapest where we saw some hilarious modern art:

A sunken house, obviously.

Yep, you guessed it, it's a portaloo!

We also took a whistle stop tour around the biggest synagogue in Europe, and then went on a Communist walking tour!  Our tour guide had lived through the Communist era so had plenty of fascinating stories to tell.

A trip to the Spa was also not to be missed (Hungary apparently sits upon a faultline, so there are many spas with naturally heated spring water!) Another friend from the hostel and I made our way to the most famous baths, Szechenyi.  After scaulding ourselves then jumping into 20 degree pools to cool us off (ok fine we didn't jump, but it was soooooo cold!) we nipped around sneakily with our cameras to take some sneaky pics:

My new friend Miseon by the outside baths

By this time Gill had arrived back into Budapest.
Her friend's aunt had also by this time offered to tour us around Budapest, so we ticked of the famous sites in Pest, then headed over the river to Buda, to check out the Castle! (did I not mention that they are actually two cities? Divded by the river. )

Gill and I by a walled fortress?  Either way it was the view of Pest from Buda, and it looked like a movie set! Amazing.

My all time favourite I think had to be the waterfall, which I might have dragged the girls to after an entire day's walking, but they kindly put up with me :) (By this time I must have walked about a marathon)

Right, I think that's enough from me for one day!

You can look forward to the next blog post describing our encounter with Romanian ticket inspectors....  lol
Hasta luego!
V
xxxx

Nuns and Sleeper trains

Wowee!
We are actually already in our third destination, Bratislava, my how time flies!

But let's start at the beginning in Prague.
First of all I was delighted to discover that Prague has a nearly-free metro system! Yay for ignorant tourists like me! No barriers, no ticket inspectors (well, nearly none), so I just made my merry way around. :)

The language was rather a challenge though, gosh I have never had such trouble pronouncing words!
Thank you was = neshledanou.  However that is said.
However, conveniently greetings were a little more familiar, hello being 'ahoy' and goodbye 'ciao'! (ok those are my spellings but still).
Below is the famous astronomical clock and some of the buildings in the main square in the Old Town:

After doing a free tour of the sights, we happily sought out a cinema to get our Harry Potter no 7 part 2 fix, so exciting! After our well needed rest off our feet (FYI, touristing= a LOT of walking!) we ambled over to the famous Charles Bridge for a night time view of Prague castle lit up, where I attempted to take some photos with the correct settings, although failing somewhat but I am making progress!  Here is the castle:

It must also be said that the weather so far had been glorious! Until then. Doh! It rained and poured, but fortunately we made it back our home reasonably dry by running in the right moments haha.

Sunday was spent doing another walking tour around the Castle, I have to say there are some very knowledgable tour guides out there!

Our first sleeper train  was in the evening, to our next stop, Krakow.

Has anybody ever been on a sleeper train? Not for the faint hearted.  Reminiscent of sardines.
But we found it comical nonetheless, until we couldn't sleep haha, but am I glad I brought my eye mask and ear plugs!!

Accommodation in Krakow was a Convent.  I kid you not!  Sister Bernarda greeted us, in polish and german no less.  We quickly learnt that the Poles were rather less anglicised than the Czechs, but fortunately Gill and I speak French so we conversed in French with Bernarda.  I even had to make use of my very broken German whilst buying a train ticket, that was interesting!

Our rooms were in a little house at the back of a garden, basic but everything we needed, even little model Jesus' and Marys for good measure :)

Day one in Krakow, another free tour! (why pay?!)
Day two - Gill was getting a little twitchy due to lack of green space, so off we went on a 3 and a half hour train trip to the Tatra mountain range, specifically, Zakopane.

A trip on the funicular up the mountain and toboggan ride down (amazing!) we headed back to make it back to the convent before our 9.30 curfew, however, there was a three hour dellllaaaayyyyyyy ugh.  We had to ring them to ask them to stay up to let us in, thank God for 3G Kindles with access to emails to we could get the phone number! I love modern technology.  When it works haha.
Here are some mountains and the awesome toboggan:

Day three we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the infamous concentration and death camps used during the second world war.  This was a rather sobering trip but very worth it none the less.
This is a picture of the bunks where people had to sleep, I suddenly became very grateful for my sleeper train cabin.

I'll leave y'all on the amusing note that the first thing I ate in Prague was a sandwich the label of which I could read so it was all a bit of guess work what it was, however after finishing it I saw the english at the top saying 'fresh crocadille sandwich' eeeeeeeek let's hope it wasn't anyway!!!

 Until next time guys :)

xxxxx

Our lil' itinerary route. Ok actually it's quite long.

Were I the slightest bit computer savvy I might have been able to delete the old map and just had one, with my nice little red route on it.  But alas, I am not, so we're just going to have to have two.  We start by the big arrow in the Czech Republic!

headless chicken

Sooooo it's the morning of my first flight departure.  Actually, despite the title of this post, I have most things planned and packed and in plastic bags wrapped with rubber bands and photocopied and backed up on a cd and send in a spare document to my Mother and waterproofed.  If you get what I mean.  But if any of you have been travelling yourselves I expect you still had that panicky-oh dear god what have I forgotten- feeling in the pit of your stomach, making me behave like a headless chicken anyway.

Basically, all I actually have to do is work out how to actually use my new camera, better get stuck into that manual.....

I feel it is also worth mentioning that things have changed slightly since the post on wall, (admittedly I did write that in March!).
Update 1: we are now only travelling for 5 and half weeks, not quite 2 months! No time no money no time. Lol.
Update 2:  Macedonia just didn't make the cut.  Shame.  So now we're only going to 11 countries! Yay! (or not, if you're Macedonian....)

First stop is Lyon, France. Visiting my wonderful family that I au-paired for, actually going with my parents.  (ok this is not really part of the trip but hey, I'm still leaving in a jet plane!)

Next stop, this Saturday, Prague.
Not exactly sure how I'm going to get from the airport to the hostel, but hopefully I'll work it out. :)

Ciao amigos!