Checking in from Spain

I have less than a week left before the end of my trip and I've started seriously winding down in anticipation. It's causing me to reach all new levels of lethargy and inertia. Is it possible for a person to mentally check out of their own vacation? Cause that's surely how I feel right now.

Here's a quick recap of what's happened since my last post on Slovenia. If I find the energy later, I'll post more details on some of these events.

May 29: Trained into Venice where I stayed in a rented apartment.

June 1: Flew to Marseille in France and spent the night in a town called Avignon.

June 2: Bused to Saint-Remy-de-Provence where I spent the next week-and-a-half in a luxury hotel and joined a group tour organized by my art professor. The days were split in half between site-seeing and painting.

June 11: Trained to San Sebastian, Spain - yeah I know, Spain wasn't part of the original itinerary. Call it a detour.

June 16: Bused to Bilbao, Spain. Here are a couple pictures from this cute little town:

Giant flower puppy by Jeff Koons

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

What's up next for this week: Train to Barcelona for a couple days' stay. Fly to Prague for another few days' stay. Fly home. Weep for the end of my journey.

How I fell in love with Slovenia in a week

First off, I have two recommendations for anyone planning to travel to Slovenia.

• When you want to move between cities, see if anyone is driving that route on prevoz.org. It's a car sharing website (similar to Sidecar in San Francisco). You'll end up paying much less and getting there way faster than if you take public transit. And it's the most liberating feeling in the world to be able to secure a ride to just about anywhere you want in a matter of minutes with a cool person you can chat with along the way.
• If you make your way to Ljubljana and are interested in a good night out, definitely see Metelkova. It's more than just a bar scene. I'd describe it as a microcosm of Communist utopia. But I'm just a naive American who is easily impressed by any amount of anti-corporate behavior. Make the judgement for yourself and have some good drinks and conversations while you're at it.

Slovenia turned out to be a different kind of place for me for many reasons. The people were exceptionally nice and the stops were beautiful. Everyone and everything was laid back in a way I could understand. It's an unexpected treat to be so enamored with a country and it gave me a much needed second wind for the rest of the trip.

Random trip photos from Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe

I figured it was time to do something about the 5 months' worth of random trip photos I never got around to sharing broadly but always kind of liked. You could call them the left-over batch. They're either stand alone shots that never seemed to fit into previous blog/facebook storylines or little gems I originally overlooked and fell in love with later. They cover my trip up to Croatia and are presented in chronological order.

Milford Sound, Southern Island of New Zealand

Jan 2013 

Just checking in

A view of the temple of Augustus in the city of Pula. Construction work is being done in the background as the city remodels its harbor

I'm in Croatia right now in a city called Split. In three hours, I'll catch an overnight bus to Trieste, Italy and then head into Slovenia. I can't believe I've spent almost two weeks in Croatia. I had an okay time here with okay weather and pleasant beaches. But there hasn't been much about this place that really stood out as something amazing or special. I'm sure Croatia would be a great place to visit for many travelers but it just wasn't for me. I've concluded the amount of fun I'll have in any given place is inversely correlated to the number of American tourists I'll find there.

Also, this is the first country I've been to where most people will turn away and ignore me when I try to say hi to them on the street. WTF Croatia?! Even people in China don't do that. How is it possible your manners are worse than the Chinese?

Since I didn't have anything good to say, I decided to stay silent and forgo any new posts here. It was a little painful to do since I've come to rely on my maintenance of this blog as a source of comfort. It keeps me sane to write entries.

And what can I say about how I've been spending my time lately? I don't do nearly as much site-seeing as I used to. Many days, I'll stay home and either doodle in my sketchbook or work on draft blog entries I never got around to publishing (none of them are about Croatia). I also met a handful of fucking amazing people I had the pleasure of sharing just a tiny slice of time with. That about sums it up.

So this is just a quick check-in letting people know where I am. I'll be hanging out along the West coast of Slovenia for the next week. If nothing else, I am succeeding at working on my tan (lines).

Day 2 in Dubrovnik, Croatia

View of the Dubrovnik coastline; a view being enjoyed by many couples cuddling on benches as I walked past alone

I'm sitting at a restaurant in Dubrovnik mooching it up on the free wifi because my hostel's internet is down. It turns out this place serves all-you-can-eat salad and bread for $4 USD. For Dubrovnik, where vegetarian meals typically cost $15 or more, this is absolutely a STEAL. My stomach hurts from all the servings I've helped myself to. I'm going to sit here for hours. I'm probably going to come back tomorrow as well.

There's a group of French men at a table nearby. They're drinking wine and talking loudly. One of them has twice attempted to toss a smile in my direction and both times I've pretended not to notice. He looks like he's of an age where it would be inappropriate for him to be smiling at me. This pisses me off.

There was a time when I was intrigued by the mystery associated with meeting new people. But after travelling this long, the romance has worn off. I like to sleep in instead.

Tonight, I'm indulging myself to a concert put on by the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. I don't have the right attire for such an event but prices are too high here for me to buy a new outfit. I foresee the impending awkwardness as the solo female attendee walks into the building in relative rags. In any case, I hope it's a nice symphony. I think some good music is just what my tired old soul needs right now.

20 years later and the bullet holes are still there

The first set of photos below were taken in and around a street in Sarajevo nicknamed Sniper Alley. This major thoroughfare was located on the front lines of a siege on the city which began in 1992 and lasted almost 4 years as part of the Bosnian War. It's been about 20 years since that war but many buildings in this area continue to stand damaged.

Walking this street was a major goal of mine during my short stay in Sarajevo - a goal which seemed to perplex my tour guide, who was keen on rushing me past this area. But as a visitor who didn't live through these years personally, seeing this place was one of the only ways I could find my connection to the events. And there were plenty buildings to find bearing the scars of the war. Bullet holes often share the wall space with ritzy retail stores and other new developments as the city tries to find its way forward.

I hope these pictures serve to give interested readers just a small window into the city of Sarajevo and the ways in which it has changed or stayed the same since the war.

In and around Sniper Alley (Officially Zmaja od Bosne)

Photos from Istanbul and Safranbolu

A warning to any travellers who spend an extended amount of time in 3rd world Asia and then go to a Western city like Istanbul. The first thing you may find yourself doing is stuffing your face full of all the delicious Western food you hadn't had access to in several months. But try to hold back lest you suffer massive stomach cramps and constipation as your body can no longer digest the heavy carbs, fats, and fibers you once called your staple diet. 

Once the knawing pain in my abdomen subsided, I ended up having a nice time in Turkey. There was only enough time to see two cities in the one week I spent here but it was a great start reacclimating myself to the 1st (technically 2nd?) world.

Istanbul

View of Istanbul from the Bosphorus Strait