"From another land's war-torn corners..." or "I'm balancing history books up on my head..." or "It was the myth of fingerprints. I've seen them all, and man they're all the same."

The independent traveling portion of my trip has officially come to a close. I’m now about to begin the last leg of my trip—Italy with my mom and sister—and I could not be more excited about it. I’ll blog about that next time (once it’s happened), though. Until then, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks traveling in three former Yugoslavian countries.

As with Bulgaria, Burma/Myanmar, the UAE, and others, the former Yugoslavian countries that I have been traveling in have been an extremely pleasant surprise on this trip because I harbored no expectations whatsoever for them. From Greece, I traveled to Skopje, the small capital of Macedonia. The old town really resonates with its Ottoman past: cobbled streets, cafes, old mosques, etc. My guesthouse in Skopje, Hostel Hostel (clever name, I know), was fantastic. It had a peaceful garden, the owner was an aging Macedonian hippie who loved to socialize and took good care of his guests, and the other travelers staying there provided great company.

Huge statue of Alexander the Great, a Macedonian, in Skopje.

The Mother Theresa Museum (she, too, is Macedonian)

The old town of Skopje.

The garden of Hostel Hostel, Skopje.

After Skopje, I headed to Pristina, the capital of the newly-Christened nation of Kosovo. I must say that my knowledge of Kosovo’s history is extremely lacking, but I vaguely knew about U.S. troop involvement under Clinton and about some sort of ethnic refugee situation. I learned more about this once in the country, but I’ll get to that later. I visited Pristina with two guys I met in Skopje, one from England and one from Belgium, and we had a blast. The locals were extremely friendly. On our first night there, we ended up going out with a few local people, and the next night we met up with them again. As I’ve said elsewhere in this blog, meeting people is truly the best part of traveling, particularly when it’s friendly locals. They loved hanging out with Europeans and an American, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. We had a couple of great nights with them.

Finally, I headed to Tirana, the capital of Albania. Although it’s a very cool city, there’s not much to do in Tirana, so I basically spent the whole 5 days bumming around and waiting for my flight to Rome.

There’s a reason I did not blog about all of these places individually, and it’s because they all have something in common. As I said before, the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 90s is something I don’t know much about at all. I have cloudy notions about conflicts in Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere, but I could not tell you any specifics. The point is that all of these countries have very serious troubles (even genocides, in the case of Kosovo) in their very recent pasts. I sort of expected these pasts to manifest as I traveled through these countries. Certainly, they did. The drab architecture and apartment blocks make the recent Communist eras feel like a reality. The locals in Kosovo (young people) had all been directly affected by the war with Serbia in one way or another. In fact, one day we stumbled upon a hunger strike in progress in Pristina. Veterans of the war for independence were voicing their grievances and asking for benefits from the national government. We sat and spoke to them for a little while, and hearing their stories was a pretty amazing experience. They seemed to appreciate our solidarity.

It’s not that these countries are ignoring the wars, conflicts, and dictators of the past—far from it. They are fully aware of their wounds, but they have chosen to pick themselves up from the dust. I spent the least amount of time in Pristina (only 3 days), but it was one of the best experiences that I’ve had on this trip. We went out drinking and dancing with the locals we met, and it drove home the point that the cultural differences between people are, at the end of the day, pretty negligible. Through broken English, traveler’s charades, and translated Dutch via our Belgian friend, we really seemed to connect with Egzona, Labianta, and Arlind in Kosovo. During the war, they had all been displaced as refugees to different parts of Europe. Now, back in their home, they were enjoying their newfound independence in the way any youth culture would: drinks and nightclubs. We really had a blast with them.

However, all of these places (Skopje, Pristina, and Tirana) are quickly shaking off their troubled pasts in different ways, particularly when it comes to young people. Skopje is quaint and peaceful. Pristina, probably the best example of this, is buzzing with bars and nightclubs, and the local youth are eager to talk about their recent independence (Kosovo just became a nation in 2008). There are still UN peacekeeping vehicles rolling through the streets of Pristina, but people are actively trying to move on with their lives and begin a brighter chapter in their history.

In Tirana, the city has implemented a huge program to paint vibrant art on the sides of huge ex-Communist apartment blocks. It’s one of the most creative ways of healing the past, and it really makes the city come to life.

United Nations vehicle in Kosovo.



Photos of the dead and missing from the war, lining the streets of Pristina.



Veteran of Kosovo's war for independence, recently finishing  a hunger strike.

More veterans, camping outside of a government building in Kosovo.

Friends in Kosovo.

Arlind (Kosovo) and Aba (England).

Bright colors on ex-Communist apartments.

More.

Colorful.

Again.

Cool.

Painting buildings and building bars might seem like a superficial way of dealing with such entrenched tragic histories, but it didn’t feel that way to me. In a way, it’s the best and most healthy way to move forward. They are acting the same way most people would act in similar circumstances: taking note of the past, and then putting it behind them. This shouldn’t be very shocking. After all, people are people are people. I was in a crowded bar with a blaring rap soundtrack, hearing a Kosovo Albanian discuss the tension with Serbia, when I realized: this seems like the most human way to cope.

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”


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"On an island in the sun..." or "Please please please, Sister Socrates..." or "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."

After a long bus ride from Sofia, Bulgaria, I finally arrived in Athens, the historic capital of Greece. I was expecting to meet some family there in a few days (Maggie and Bob). However, in an amazing display of generosity, Bob offered (and insisted) on getting me out to Santorini to meet them immediately. That’s how, after only one afternoon in Athens, I found myself on a puddle-jumper plane towards the Greek Isles. I arrived in Santorini late at night and promptly met Maggie and Bob at their hotel, a beautiful resort of white clay buildings overlooking the pristine coast of the island. The view from our room was beyond postcard material, and it was exactly how I'd always imagined the picturesque beaches of Greece. The hotel itself was luxurious and something to see. After months in dingy hostels, the Perivolas resort felt beyond delux to me. It was wonderful to rest and soak in the views. We drove all over the small island, went snorkeling, lounged on the black sand and stone beaches, and browsed the upscale tourist shops. Of all the places I've been, Santorini is a serious contender for the most beautiful. Here are some photos:

View from our hotel in Santorini.

Again.

Church in Santorini.

View around sunset.

Sunset in Santorini.

We left Santorini for Athens after a few days. I really enjoyed the city during the afternoon I was there, so I was glad to get back and see it more deeply. Athens radiates with a sense of history. It’s extremely cool to just walk around. It’s a fully functioning city, but it all exists in the shadow of breathtaking ruins like the Acropolis and such. There are millennia-old ruins everywhere. It really puts human history in perspective to hear someone say, “Yeah, those Ionic columns were built around the 4th century B.C.” We toured the Acropolis. I saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus. I also visited the Ancient Agora, which is where Socrates used to hang out in his philosophical heyday. I’ve always been a big fan of Socrates, so I was really stunned to be able to check that out. Again, all of those sights are especially amazing because they are right in the heart of a bustling modern city. Here are some photos of Athens:

Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens.

The Ancient Agora, where Socrates used to hang out.

The Parthenon.

Another view of the Parthenon.

Statues outside a temple on the Acropolis.

Maggie and I in Athens, with the Acropolis in the background.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the news these past few weeks, you’re probably under the impression that Greece’s economy and stability have gone to Hell in a hand basket, as they say. Indeed, when I decided to visit Greece, I received several emails warning me of riots in Athens over the crumbling economy and the incompetency of the government. I had not been paying attention to the news, so I was unaware of just how bad the economy in Greece had gotten. Bob’s travel agent even recommended that he switch hotels in Athens (which we did) due to security concerns near the city center. In other words: if there’s a rebellion, you don’t want to be there.

My first day in Athens (the single afternoon by myself before I flew to Santorini to meet them), I accidentally wandered into Constitution Square, an open area downtown that houses the Parliament Building. If you’ve seen newscasters reporting on the riots and mass demonstrations in front of hoards of protestors, they are probably broadcasting from Constitution Square. Anyway, I accidentally wandered over there and found tons of people camped out in front of Parliament. There were political booths, rally signs, and literature all over the place. I strolled around, and everything was fine.

Word.

Protest sign in Constitution Square, Athens.

When I arrived back in Athens with Bob and Maggie a few days later, the hotel’s concierge told us that the demonstrations would start around 7, so we might want to “avoid” the Parliament Building after that. Instead, we ended up right in the middle of the crowd. The scene was pretty amazing: young protestors with megaphones, crowds shouting slogans, people booing members of Parliament as they walked into the building, et cetera. Demonstrators, and later police, blocked off the road to cars. We hung around for a bit and soaked it all in. If I could understand Greek, I probably would have appreciated it more. Here’s what it looked like:

Flag waving.

Demonstrators.

Chanting slogans.

 

Barricades: demostrators vs. police.

Mass demonstrations (not riots) outside the Parliament Building.

In spite of all of the demonstrations, all of the protestors, all of the discontent, and all of the reports of riots, there was never a moment of actual danger throughout my time in Athens. One night, we came back to our hotel immediately after leaving the night-time demonstrations at Constitution Square. I turned on CNN and BBC, only to see their reporters sensationalizing the reality on the ground. Later, in a lead-in to a story about the Greek economy, CNN ran a photo of a group of rioters being dispersed in a cloud of smoke. The implication: Athens is crumbling! Save yourselves!

Keep in mind: I had just left the area of town they were discussing. However, there were no riots there. There wasn’t even any threatening language. Actually, the whole thing seemed frustratingly benign. These were not anarchists tossing Molotovs into corporate windows. They weren’t setting fire to overturned police cars. It bared more resemblance to Bonnaroo than a revolution. There were food vendors and street performers, for God’s sake.

Which leads me to another thing I’ve learned while traveling (on this trip and others): things are hardly ever as bad as the media and fear-mongers in the United States present them to be. On this trip, I have been in several supposedly “compromising” or “unsafe” situations. I was in Thailand when the border war with Cambodia flared up early this year. I visited Burma, a military state that even I was shocked I could enter. I was in India (Pakistan’s unwelcome neighbor) riding public transportation as the U.S. embassies all over the world issued warnings not to do that in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death. Jobi and I were planning a trip to Morocco until a terrorist bombing in Marrakech forced us to reconsider. This week, I was in downtown Athens amid the “riots.”

And what’s amazing is that I never—not once—felt the least bit concerned about my safety. There was almost no actual danger in these places for a traveler like me.

The media deserves some of the blame. After all, any for-profit newspaper would much rather print a photo of the one guy tossing a brick through a window rather than the thousands of others who are peacefully demonstrating in front of the Parliament Building. That’s understandable, I suppose.

Another part of the blame belongs to something even more nebulous than the media, though. A lot of it is the culture of fear that pervades America. While on a bus in Bulgaria, I met an American girl who had traveled by herself to Kabul—yes, the capital of Afghanistan—in 2008. In Belgium, I met an Argentinian guy who was encouraging me to go to Cairo because of the cheap deals and great times he’d found there in the wake of the recent rebellion. Last week, I met a couple of French guys who were on their way to Iran on a tourist visa. These people did not seem obsessed with security concerns, and their travels were all the more enriching for it. Indeed, they, too, found that “unfriendly” countries are a lot more accommodating than we might imagine.

We are constantly indoctrinated with a certain fear of “the other.” It’s not conspiratorial or calculated, but it exists. We can see it in school textbooks (e.g., terms like “Third World”), in the “us against them” language of politicians, in the excessively cautious advisories issued by the State Department, in the sensationalist media outlets, and in the well intentioned fears of family and friends.

The sad truth is that bad things happen everywhere in the world all the time, yet I have felt safer throughout my travels than I feel in many cities in the United States. I understand the security concerns of America. I understand that I can’t waltz around the streets of Baghdad without accepting a certain level of risk. However, it’s important to keep these fears in perspective. If a single American female traveler can navigate the streets of Kabul, then I think that’s proof enough that we should pump the breaks when it comes to the fear rhetoric. These places are accommodating, and often the xenophobia subtly cultivated by our society is completely unfounded. I didn’t get arrested by the government of Burma; I wasn’t swept up in the so-called “riots” of Athens; the military skirmish in Thailand wasn’t anywhere near affecting me; and India was business-as-usual in the wake of Osama’s killing. Was I tempting fate in all of these cases? No. I wasn’t “lucky.” If it seems that way, it's only because we have such fearful and negative expectations when it comes to Americans traveling abroad.

I often say that traveling is good for people because it forces them out of their comfort zones. However, the implication is a bit misleading. By escaping my comfort zone, I don’t become uncomfortable (or unsafe). Rather, I simply realize that I have restricted my comfort zone too conservatively, that most people in the world mean me no harm at all, and that the world can be a pretty welcoming place if you return the sentiment. I haven’t been proven wrong yet, and I don’t think it’s because I’m lucky.

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

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"Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out, come and keep your Comrade warm..." or "If I could find a souvenir just to prove the world was here..."

My plans have changed a whole lot throughout the course of this trip. I have had to miss cities that I really wanted to visit, and I have randomly found myself in others that I never could have foreseen. If there's one thing I have learned about traveling during this trip, it's that it's difficult to stick to a plan--and that's usually for the best.

I never intended to visit Bulgaria in my lifetime. Up until around 3 days before I left, I still thought I would bypass the country. However, I left Istanbul about 6 days ago on an overnight bus bound for Sofia, Bulgaria's capital city, and I could not be happier that I did.

At first glance, Sofia is not a particularly remarkable city, and I felt pretty underwhelmed on my first day there. However, the city does have loads of interesting sights and history. Often, though, it's easy to miss these sights until you're literally right upon them. The churches and statues and such are all hidden in the folds of urban landscaping and tall buildings. When I was walking around Sofia looking for a particular place, I would often be ready to give up, convinced that I should have spotted it already, and then I would look down a random alley or something and see a towering church. It's really strange, but also pretty cool. The churches in Bulgaria are mostly from sects of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which look quite different from the Catholic cathedrals of Western Europe. I haven't visited many Eastern Orthodox churches, and they were quite beautiful. Here are some photos of the sights around Sofia:

A random old church right the urban center of the city.



Statue of St. Sofia, for whom the city is named.

St. Nedelia Church.

Painting in St. Nedelia Church.



Devotional candles in St. Nedelia Church.



Again, inside St. Nedelia Church.



Russian Orthodox Church.

The awesome Alexander Nevski Cathedral.

Inside the Alexander Nevski Cathedral.

On my last day in Bulgaria, I also visited Rila, a small mountain town that is renowned for its beautiful old monastery. A couple of guys from my hostel basically invited me to go minutes after I woke up, so it was a bit random. When we got there after a 3 hour bus ride, though, I was glad that I had accepted their invitation. It's a very quiet, peaceful place, and it has a wonderful church with colorful religious murals painted all over the walls. They accept foreign visitors for a low price. If I had known that, I might have rearranged my itinerary in order to stay there. Oh well. It was a wonderful day trip. Here are some photos:

The Nativity Church at the monastery.

Murals.

The grounds of the monastery.

The Rila Monastery.

I am not usually big on buying souvenirs. In fact, I had not yet purchased any souvenirs before Sofia. However, there is one type of souvenir for which I am a total sucker: communist kitsch. This is the reason that I have a big knock-off of an Andy Warhol lithograph of Mao Tse-tung hanging on my wall. I love that kind of stuff--can't get enough of it. Bulgaria, after World War II, embraced a communist government whole-heartedly, and it ran the country until the collapse of the Soviet sphere of influence in the late 80s. They never technically joined the Soviet Union (I don't think), but they supported it and wanted to join it for a short time. When I arrived in Bulgaria, I went souvenir hunting for any ridiculous remnants of Soviet souvenirs. After a few days of searching, I came upon a flea market around the Alexander Nevski Cathedral , and I felt as though I had hit the jackpot. Typically, I don't like shopping, but browsing through the Communist trinkets and such made me feel like an elderly woman browsing through Tuesday Morning. In other words, I enjoyed myself. They had Soviet propaganda pins, statuettes, flasks, shirts, nesting dolls, watches, weaponry, cigarette holders, etc. etc. I felt like I was in a wonderland of communist goodies. Here are some photos:

Aluminum statues of Lenin!

USSR (CCCP) drinking sets!

Russian nesting dolls: Stalin, Lenin, and... Elvis? I am now the proud owner of the Stalin dolls.

Soviet Zippos!

Communist compasses.

Soviet propaganda pins.

Soviet T-shirts.

I want to be clear, though: it's not a genuine historical interest that drives me to buy this kind of stuff. In spite of my more conservative friends who probably label me as a Pinko Bleeding-Heart Commie, it's also not in retrospective support of the USSR (obviously). Honestly, it's much less intellectual than all of that. In truth, I just find this stuff hilarious. To my sense of humor, there is something hysterically funny about Josef Stalin nesting dolls, Vladimir Lenin compasses, and Mao Tse-tung pocket watches. I can't say exactly why, but I think it has something to do with the seriousness and callousness of these figures projected onto such ridiculous and harmless objects. Again, this is why I have that brightly colored lithograph painting of Mao on my wall at home. It's certainly not because I agree with the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward. There's just something funny about seeing a man like Josef Stalin reduced to a nesting doll.

That doesn't explain it totally, though. I've never seen such kitsch trinkets for Fascists like Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, but I doubt that I would find them quite so funny. I can't really say why. After all both groups (Fascists and Communists) killed millions and millions of people in the 20th century, so there's no argument to be made that Franco wasn't "quite as sinister" as Stalin. Nevertheless, I only find communist kitsch funny. I don't want a compass with a swastika on it--but if you show me one with a hammer and sickle on it, my eyes will light up. I can't say why for sure. Maybe part of it is a matter of political ideology. I lean to the Left (as my friends know), which probably makes me sympathetic to socialistic ideals. Meanwhile, I deplore fascism even in its most genuine and idealistic practice. Therefore, it would make sense that I find one funny and the other not. Stalin and Mao are equally as evil as Hitler and Franco, but there is one fundamental difference. In the cases of the formers, they represent a total corruption of and departure from the ideals of Marxism (whatever one might say of Marxism). Meanwhile, the actions of notorious fascists in history appear to me to be natural outgrowths of fascism as an ideology (militarism, nationalism, hyper-patriotism, etc etc). Put another way: no matter how strictly you adhere to fascist ideals, the worse off the people will be. That is not necessarily the case when it comes to Marxism, which in a strange way disarms tyrants like Stalin by presenting them as historical anomalies.

OK, I feel like I'm rambling now, and I'm getting close to defending Marxism. I don't want to do that. For all of you neo-McCarthyites: "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party." And that's true. My only point is that I am sympathetic to the ideals (not the ideas) of communism, and I cannot say the same for fascism. This probably accounts for my apparently arbitrary sense of humor when it comes to kitsch souvenirs of 20th century tyrannical dictators.

On the other hand, maybe there's just something inherently funnier about a Vladimir Lenin change purse.

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

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