South-Western Eastern Europe

Have I mentioned I love Germany before? Well, just in case, man do I love Germany. I think possibly as a hangover from the two world wars, we still have a trickle down of propaganda floating around in our cliches of the German people, and I think that if you don't get to know them, German's can seem a little odd. But once you look past the socks with sandals, and the fact they seem to have changed tactics from invasion by force to invasion by holiday, they are really cool people. For starters, they are hilarious. They have a very dark sense of humour, which I assume is borne out of a quite bleak recent history, but they are one of the funnest groups of people to share a drink with (although beware, their humour does not stretch to joking about their beer. You want to invoke the wrath that made the blitzkreig possible? Make a wise crack about Belgium beer being the best).

I also quite like their view on life. Germans are what I consider the anti-Americans. This is not a slight against either groups of people, but I feel that with contrasting fortunes in the world wars comes a quite contrasting outlook on life. German's have to be the most pragmatic and least faith based people I've come across. But this is in no way saying they're cynical. Where the US, and I guess Australia to an equal extent, tend to be bought up with the idea of happily ever after, and the goal of life being one big perfect Hollywood film, German people tend to have a much more analytical attitude, they seem to have an inbuilt understanding that the complexities of life mean it's not always going to work out for everyone. Yet, as I said before, this doesn't come across as pessimistic. They still plan, love, and live like everything will be amazing, they just seem more able to actually confront reality head on.

I also never understood why we make fun of Germans for travelling en mass. To be fair, this isn't really a stereotype that persists in Australia, which is lucky because it would be the height of hypocrisy. But across Europe you are always greeted with eye rolling from locals when discussing German tourists. I think the reason for this negative stereotype is probably because the sense of adventure and the desire to travel is so ingrained in the culture, that people from all walks of German life seem to travel. That means that the fun, outgoing, and integratable German's are forgotten in favour of the few narky, structured, 'BUT VAT ABOUT DAS SCHEDULE, AGHH' Germans. But as an Australian gypsy I really feel the need to come to the defense of the Krauts. Every country has people with qualities that you would never want to advertise as national traits. Usually these peoples' actions can be boiled down to narrow mindedness, or obliviousness to the world around them, and I can't think of anything better way of expunging these traits than to encourage travel. In Australia we may laugh at the movie 'The Castle' when Eric Bana goes on about 'the culture' of Bali in a cringe worthy manner, and any Aussie who has traveled has experienced that moment where they tell people they're from New Zealand after hearing some bogan yell 'Oim from Straya, know where that is? Farkin OZI OZI OZI mate', but we usually cringe hardest because we realise just how close to this stereotype we were when we started traveling. But when that Australian returns back home, and after the drug flashbacks and the effects of Methanol poisoning wear off, they'll now have a connection to a country that isn't theirs, and that makes it a hell of a lot harder to exhibit behaviours such as racism and small town mindedness. What you're essentially seeing is your nation going through puberty. Sure it's unsightly, and embarrassing, but once you've gone through it, you're finally all grown up and fit to be a member of society.

Germany as a whole is a great place to visit thanks to everything I've mentioned above, but Berlin is on a different level again. I've already waxed lyrical about how much I loved Berlin's nightlife, street art, and history. But it's one of the city's less obvious sights that I think really demonstrates why I love this place so much. Snaking its' way around the streets of Berlin, and occasionally over the top of intersections, are a series of baby blue and bright pink pipes. Obviously at some point Berlin decided that the ugly overground piping that covered the city was unsightly, and would hamper their bid to beautify the city. Instead of dismantling the standing structures and spending a tonne of money on installing underground pipes, someone's come up with the brilliant idea to just paint them. And it works, the pipes just add to the artistic nature of the city, and you find tourists everywhere pointing their cameras up and taking happy snaps of them (below: exhibit A). I love this combination of outside the box artistic thinking, and German pragmaticism, and I think this is representative of the city as a whole. The place works beautifully and would be a great place to live, but they achieve this functionality by taking risks that most other cities would never even dream of doing.

This photo does the idea absolutely no justice, but I kept forgetting to photograph them.

Two other things that I loved in Berlin, that really show what a unique soul this place has, was the fact they let dogs on trains, and this old phone both which they turned into a book exchange.

I can't think of many places in the world this kind of thing would work, and maybe it's just a matter of persistence, forcing people to be surrounded by things as trusting and good natured as this, no matter how many times people burn it down/steal all the book/use it as a bathroom. It probably also says a lot about their current management of social welfare. You can't have this sort of thing in a place where people are hungry.

My time in Berlin was spent with two awesome couchsurfing hosts. The first guy I stayed with was a really nice German dark metal fan who was studying his masters in English literature. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of dark metal, it originated in Scandinavia where music fans were sick of the happy go lucky sunshine and bullshit that when on in regular death metal. While it doesn't really strike a chord with me, we bonded over both being fans of a music style not necessarily enjoyed by the masses. His room mate, who actually owned the apartment, was a bit of a character. I never actually met him, as he was a doctor who spent a lot of time on the road and wasn't there while I was, but apparently he was somewhat of a gay horticulturist. I appreciate that seems a bit of an odd characterisation to make of someone I never even met, but it wasn't exactly a Sherlock Holmes worthy detection. Firstly the place (specifically the lounge room/my bed room) was jam packed with plants, and an elaborate automatic watering and UV lighting system. It also smelt quite strongly of manure, as he fertilised them regularly. This was especially odd considering he had an extensive balcony where he could have created his own outdoor greenery, but I guess the German winters would've been too harsh on some of his more tropical plants.

For those of you with keen eyes, you'll have seen how I figured the gay part out. His walls were absolutely covered with everything that is sweaty and ripply about men. That, and A LOT of penises, about half of which were actually his. The Pièce de résistance was his penis dangling over the toilet, which meant there was more than just one penis you have to be concerned with when taking a leak.

He was quite a lucky man, I had to redraw that smiley three times before I got full coverage.

Anyway, my host was awesome, and he took me around to a few punk bars, and a few of his favourite local watering holes, however most of my time there he was off at Uni, so I only saw him intermittently. After a few days in town I was contacted by my friend, Ronja, who had couchsurfed with me in Australia with her boyfriend at the beginning of the year. She'd been a really cool guest and so I decided to jump couches and stay with her and her family for the rest of my time in town. I'm glad I decided to do this as I now had a local to show me around the city, and on top of this I got to stay with the German version of the Brady Bunch. You know when you meet families that even when their kids are entering their late teens or early twenties still make a tonne of time for each other, read books and play music instead of watching tv, still have family meals, and all the kids are heading off on different but equally amazing and promising life trajectories, and they manage to achieve all this without making it kinda lame and Von Trappish? Yeh, this was one of those families. I can pretty much guarantee their family friends all leave dinner parties with them in dead silence before sneering something like 'well I heard the youngest does pot', they were that nice. 

I was also grateful to make the switch to stay with Ronja because she ended up being an awesome person to hang out with. Ronja is a lovely German girl who is currently killing time earning a bit of money while she waits to go to University next year. As a person who is afraid of both heights and confined spaces she decided the best way to spend the year was to work as a flight stewardess for Lufthansa. While logic is clearly not her speciality, she did make a very good tour guide, and it was really fun being shown the city by someone who has lived there their whole life. She was also a true exponent of the dark and sarcastic German wit, and we spent most of our time walking around the city with her making fun of my Australian inability to deal with the cold, and me mocking the fact I knew my way around the city better than her.

Ummm, the street art is around here somewhere, I swear.

One other great thing about Ronja showing me the town was that she is quite the expert on the local graffiti scene, and through places she'd previously visited, and from stalking her friends' facebook photos, we managed to find a few really cool locations. My favourite of which, and probably one of my favourite experiences of my whole trip was the old CIA listening post turned street art gallery, Teufelsberg. Teufelsberg was just brilliant. Ronja had told me about it, and we'd gone to try and have a look around but had found all entrances locked, and a bunch of angry looking security guards inside, meaning we couldn't break in. I found out later that it's only open on Sundays, but you could only enter with a tour. I was a bit gutted, because despite keeping an open mind to the idea, tours had been a massive disappointment to me so far. They'd all offered only limited, and mostly uninteresting, information, and they'd all been far too unadventurous for my tastes. But I should have known that in Germany, home of the tour guided tourists, that if a tour was rubbish it wouldn't last a day. 

The guy showing us around was an old CIA spook who had actually worked at the listening post. As someone suffering from a 007 complex, this made for an amazing experience. He told us all about the day to day life, the crises, and as much detail as he could as to the exact capabilities of the listening station and the role it played in preventing nuclear war. He was the perfect tour guide, as thanks to his profession he was able to play down the danger and severity of his job, which meant that when he did tell you something of consequence it really struck home. The best parts were where he wasn't allow to go into specifics (apparently full disclosure will occur in about 10 years) but would allude at the listening stations potential capability. 

Now that you've seen him, none of you are safe.

It was easily the most polished, yet interesting, tour presentation I've had on this trip, and if anyone is in Berlin you have to do it. No options, just go. And that was just the tour guide. Here's what it looked like:

The whole place looks like a post-apocalyptic remnant, but was rescued just in time by someone who bought the land and prevented its' demolition. The story of how it came to be manages to tie the station into the world war that preceded its' use in the cold war. Berlin itself is remarkably unremarkable geologically. It's flat as far as the eye can see, with the exception of the hill Teufelsberg is built on. The hill is quite large, and enabled the Americans to get a clear signal all the way to Moscow (allegedly), which is remarkable considering the whole thing is artificial. To give you an idea of just how brutal and destructive WWII was, the hill (aptly named 'Devil's mountain') is composed entirely of rubble created by British bombing raids and the battles that took place in the city. When history books tell you that the place was leveled, that's not poetic license!

Anyway, as you can see from those photos up there, the street artists have had at this place. If this were an ancient ruin this would be terrible, but this is from a gritty and dark period of history, and the graffiti only adds to it's charm, a fact the locals have realised as they have turned what used to be office walls into an art gallery. Here is just a small selection of the few thousand photos I took:

These first few are just from the entrance to the towers

The next ones are all presented on the various floors of the main listening tower.

The view from near the top.

As you can see, you get to walk all the way to the top, from where you get a pretty good view of Berlin. You even get to go into the dome above where these photos were taken, where you get to experience exactly how good the acoustic amplification is, and you begin to understand how they were able to pick up signals from so far away. The dome also houses the most terrifying and unnecessary doorway in the world:

Spies don't even have to obey gravity! Don't you see why I have a Bond complex?

Teufelsberg was definitely the highlight, but I had many other great experiences in Berlin the second time around. Some of my favourites were:

* The Soviet War Memorial:
To be honest this is just a war memorial, and shouldn't be that interesting. But in a way that only the Soviet Union can, it manages to combine beauty, grandeur, and brutalism into a quite amazing site. It's just one long tree lined boulevard, with a couple of harsh metallic gates guarded by statues of a couple of archetypal Russian soldiers, which then leads into another boulevard which is lined with stone tombs carved with decals, all leading up to a giant statue. The statue is brilliant, all I could picture upon seeing it was some high up Soviet official saying, 'Nyet!!! Beegger, beegger. And vat is that? No guns, a sword, a beeg fuckoff sword. And a child. Vy? Because ve are Rarrshian, ve get bored being so awesome at war, ve also take care of keeds at same time.'

The standing on a broken Swastika was a nice touch too.

Not sure what Stalin was saying here but I'm sure it's something mild mannered.

* Berlin's 775th Birthday Celebration street festival.
Taking a page out of the Spanish playbook, the German's decided to set things on fire to celebrate the city's birthday. I have no idea what the symbolism was, but I'm guessing since the city has historically been on fire more often than not, they just decided to go with it.

*Spreepark.
This is a now abandoned theme park that was once the pride of the eastern side of the wall. This place was definitely no six flags or dreamworld, but like 2Pac, it seems to be much more arty and interesting after death. The old domes and the rusted rides are kind of eerie, and would make an awesome location for a horror film. Adding to the creepy mystique are the german shepherds that will sneak up and bark at you as you're leaning over the fence to take a photo.

'I dunno Billy, I heard they closed it because the old grounds keeper went crazy and killed a bunch of kids'

'Pfft, well you can stay here if you're chicken, we're gunna go play hide and seek in the haunted house ride'

*Hipster Park Markets.
I'm not actually sure what the place was called, but every weekend they have a flea market which brings all the towns trendies out to one place in search of something vintage, ironic, ironically vintage or vintagely ironic. Thanks to Berlin being a truly trendy town the markets are massive, and absolutely jam packed, and is just another nice piece of colour in a town jam packed full of it.

In the background, the markets, the foreground, David Hasselhoff acoustic cover artist.

Apart from that, there were just hundreds of interesting landmarks and places see. It's the kind of city you'd need to live in for quite a while to be able to take in all the bars, museums, parks, and restaurants. But sadly I had to move on and say goodbye to Berlin as my Schengen visa had 3 days left on it, and I had to make a break for the border. My first stop on the way out was a brief stay in Budapest. Budapest reminded me a bit of Prague. It's a very beautiful old historic Gothic city, but I got the feeling I had arrived at the wrong time of the year to do anything apart from wander around wearing all my clothes and trying not to freeze to death. It also didn't help that I picked a hostel that while aesthetically beautiful, was full of dull people and had a hostel manager who apparently was going through menopausal hot flushes and didn't realise that when it reaches ten degrees inside the dorms it's probably time to break the budget and turn on the heater.

As I was only in town for a short while, I explored the city very superficially, but what I managed to see was pretty impressive. The town has a massive statue overlooking the town from the hill on the Pest side of the river (Budapest is actually two towns, Buda and Pest), which was originally supposed to be of the mayor's son holding a propellor, which was to be representative of his son's tragic death in WWII. But, deciding to make it a bit more wider reaching in it's appeal and relevance, they decided to make it of a chick holding a palm leaf, and have it be for the entire airforce. There are also some other statues and a castle on top of the hill, and it offers quite a nice view of the city.

Man v Dragon boxing is quite big here .

 The town is quite statue mad, and there is another cool one overlooking one of the towns' main bridges, of what I can only assume is some pope like dude blessing the Skoda's crossing it.

The power of Christ compels you....to give way to the pope mobile.

 The city is also quite beautiful at night with the many historic castles, churches, and parliamentary buildings all lit up.

One place I really enjoyed, that was located out on the city limits, was the Soviet statue museum. This place contained a whole bunch of the old statues from the days where Hungary was under the rule of the Soviets, and it's really quite impressive. Say what you will about their economy, their human rights, and their perspective on life, the Soviets sure knew how to do a good statue. Here were some of my favourites:

This one is huge, and really captures the power and strength of the man.

Lenin, so jolly.

While I was only in Budapest for a limited time, I felt like I did a pretty good job seeing most of what it had to offer, and while definitely one of the most beautiful places I've been, at this time of year two days was plenty of time to see everything I wanted to see. Although there was one exception. I missed out on the visiting times for a church that houses the thousand year old mummified hand of the first King of Hungary, which is a shame because I had so many picture tag lines queued up for that one, but ah well. It's been there one millenia, I'll catch it next time.

From Budapest I got the hell out of Dodge, and endured a nerve wracking bus ride into the Balkans and out of the Schengen region, getting out on the last possible day. Just a bit of a background on the Schengen visa. The Schengen region is an area of Europe which is a separate entity to the EU. It's a group of European countries which have essentially dropped all border controls between each other. While there may still be passport checks when crossing between member nations, you won't get any stamps, and more often than not no border control exists. It incorporates most of Western Europe with the exception of the UK, Ireland, and the Balkans. As an Aussie you automatically get to spend 90 out of 180 days in the Schengen region, without even applying for an kind of physical visa. Your visa just starts on day one, when your passport is stamped in the country where you're entering, and then it's up to you to keep track of the number of days.

This all sounds great, and despite it making Euro trips of greater than 3 months a little more difficult, with careful planning of travel to places like the non Schengen European countries, or Morocco and Turkey, you can travel freely and easily for pretty much as long as you'd ever want to. The only problem is the Schengen visa seems to have no central authority, and the internet is very vague about the exact rules of the visa. You just have to make your own mind up by reading different government's guidelines and by asking other travelers. But here are just some points that I haven't been able to find definitive answers on are:
* If moving in and out of the Schengen region, do you count the day you enter, and leave, as a day of your 90 days stay?
* After your 180 day period is up, do you start afresh with a completely new visa starting on day 1 of entry and day 1 of the 180 period, or does the visa then roll over and is always valid for the previous 180 day period?
* Do you have to leave the region on day 180 regardless of whether you've used your 90 days or not, so that you can start the next Schengen visa 180 day period with a new stamp?
* Does Gibraltar counts as a part of the Schengen region or not (I had a friend get refused a stamp by the Spanish border control because Spain has hurt feelings about the Brits taking it from them).

Anyway, all this is very boring and I apologise (I promise I'll make it up for you with boobs later), but because of the vague wording of the visa details, and the lack of clarity, and the quite heavy penalties if you overstay (€10,000 and a black dot in the passport that can have you banned for 10 years), I was pretty bloody nervous going across the border into Serbia. Luckily I'd met a really cool girl, Kylie, from Canada who joked with me while the passport police took their sweet time stamping everyone on bus' passport. Kylie and I had met while waiting together on the one dry step in the pouring rain at our bus's random pick-up point. Kylie was in the middle of her own massive trip, and she made my zig-zagging across Europe for festivals seem positively logical when she told me about her trip that had taken her from Europe to Africa to Europe to the Middle east to Asia and then back and forth randomly across Europe. But despite her sporadic travel plans she was a cool girl and we bonded over both having family names made famous by notorious womanisers (her surname was Flynn).

The next port was Belgrade, and was to begin my second jaunt through the Balkans (Balkans 2: This time it's war torn). My first time through I'd visited Croatia, in the middle of summer, enjoying the beautiful coast and the amazing weather. The closest I'd come to seeing any evidence from the years of bloody conflicts in the area was the odd sign for land mines when I ventured inland to see Plitvice Lakes. This time, however, I was going witness the darker side of the region.

I was quite excited to see Belgrade, as one of my best friends from Uni was a girl called Ivana, who was Belgrade born and bred, and had been here for the NATO bombing strikes. I had heard quite a few stories from her and was really keen to see it all firsthand. The city has pretty much completely moved on from the bombings, with a couple of exceptions: two blocks of buildings that were gutted by cluster bombs, which I think they've chosen to keep as a sort of living memorial for the conflict. It's quite effective, as you can see how horrifying the bombing must have been, witnessing how the bombs just sliced through the buildings like butter.

The realism of the military presence here was taken to the next level for me while I was walking around taking photos of the destroyed buildings. I'd been walking around listening to my iPod, and I was completely absorbed in looking around the site, when I jumped up onto one of the walls on the side of the grounds to try and get a photo from a novel angle. It came as quite a shock when I was then grabbed by the shoulder and dragged back but what turned out to be a quite stern looking military dude. After taking out my headphones I walked with him into an office where I was asked to hand over my ID and told to take a seat. Eventually an important looking dude came out, and stared at my ID for a couple of minutes. I'm not sure what he was looking for, maybe he thought the holograms on it were a magic eye puzzle, but eventually he asked me what my name was. After telling him, he then went back to looking at my ID again, then when finished with that asked me why I was taking photos. Luckily I was able to convince him I was just a tourist (little does he know <sips martini>) and after letting me know it was a military building and not to take anymore photos, I was free to go. I'm not sure about the logic behind telling a clueless tourist that he'd just photographed highly sensitive material and letting him keep the snaps, but I guess that's why they only won 14 of the 37 wars they participated in in the last hundred years*
* Statistic may not be 100% historically accurate. I may have missed out on a few conflicts.

The offending photo. 10 points for each sensitive military secret you find. (All I could find was that their buildings were susceptible to bombs. I see why they keep that one secret)

But these two buildings, and the fact that the exchange rate was about 1:3000 thanks to the hyperinflation the nation experienced, were the only real evidence of the past conflicts, in a city that is really quite vibrant and busy. It was a really fun city, and there were some great stories to be heard about what went on during the war. My favourite story was one I'd heard from Ivana, about how every time the NATO planes were inbound, people from all over the city would counterintuitively head out to the city's main bridge. The theory was that no fighter pilot would be willing to commit mass murder just to remove an enemy's strategic asset. That's pretty bloody ballsy, especially in light of the number of civilian casualties that have occurred during the most recent US conflicts. One thing that was on the Serbians' side was that once they got to the bridge they would turn the place into a massive disco, with lights, dj's and booze. This increased visibility obviously was a considerable asset for the thousands of civilians risking their lives, as the bridge survived the war in tact. Some people may say this shows the racism ingrained in the US military in that they seem to have the ability to dehumanise people in the middle east and commit mass murder of those civilians in the pursuit of assets linked to terrorism, whereas they held back when it came to whiter people in Serbia. But I think it just shows the US's respect for a good party. If you want to limit civilian deaths tolls in the middle east, don't waste your money supporting amnesty international or other well intended charities, send them fairy lights, strobes and David Guetta!

Anyway, the locals took the life saving effect of a good party to heart as the town now has one of the best nightlifes in the world. They even have a club located inside one of the bridges' pylons, for those who want to pay homage to the brave revelers from the war. Luckily I was now staying in a very fun hostel, and I was easily able to rustle up a posse to head out and experience the nightlife firsthand. Sadly on the biggest night out, I was tempted by the freeness of some white wine, which as I've previously mentioned is my kryptonite. I don't know why but white wine always results in lost memory and regrettable decisions. This night proved to be no different, as despite being in a city with some of the most glamorous and beautiful girls in all of Europe, I learnt the morning after that I somehow managed to spend most of the night being chatted up and courted by some guy. My last four white wine sessions now read:
* Literally sleeping in a gutter.
* Breaking into the British Parliament house
* Missing the only ferry of the day off the island of Korcula
* Man to man flirtation
Granted, this last one isn't potentially an incarceratable offense, or costly or dangerous, but if you saw how hot the local girls are, you'd understand why I was a bit miffed to decide this was the night to unintentionally explore my sexuality.

I spent a lot of time just walking around the city checking out the sites. The weather here was beautiful, especially compared to what I'd just been enduring up north, and so it was really nice to just walk around getting happy snaps. One of the more illuminating trips was when I was walking around New Belgrade, the mainly residential and office space area on the other side of the Danube river. The buildings here were classic  examples of eastern bloc architecture. Massive grey concrete structures, free of any imagination or style, surrounded by the odd token shrub or sickly looking tree, amid a gridded network of roads. It's not the most hideous place I've ever been by any stretch of the imagination, but it was just so energy sappingly uninspiring. And this led me to a revelation. For anyone who has eastern European friends, you'll have probably experienced the moment where one of them will break out an item of clothing that has a colour you had previously thought was reserved for highlighting textbooks. To put it gently, the eastern European countries are quite fond of a bit of flair, and more often than not, A LOT of flair. No one ever gets hit crossing the road when they're drunk in Eastern Europe because you can see them from a mile away (and because all the cars are broken down....sorry, I just came over all 1980's for a second there). Now, in America, Australia or western Europe this clothing style is usually met with ridicule, but here it makes sense. In Serbia, for example, the people are very active, bright, happy people, however they're surrounded by drab uninspiring architecture. Without a bit of colour the place would be depressing as hell, but with the bright red skirts, the luminescent yellow skinny jeans, the place comes alive, and the environment begins to match the atmosphere.  Against the backdrop of more architecturally interesting cities it looks ridiculous, but the neon on grey effect is quite appealing here, and you don't even blink when a 70 years old walks past in a lime green lycra jumpsuit. Having said that, there does still remain some mystery to the Eastern European dress sense. I still have no explanation for bum bags and matching tracksuits being worn as social wear (although I guess a wallet would ruin the lines of the matching tracksuit, which would totally make them look ridiculous).

This building is responsible for fluoro fishnet t-shirts.

One of the more interesting buildings in New Belgrade.

Back in the town centre, the architecture is much more interesting, and the place is especially beautiful at night. Just look at their parliament:

 During the day the city does appear a tad more gritty, but it's still a nice enough place to be, especially with all the parks spread through the city. I have a feeling the parks are merely a side effect of this regions' love affair with statues. As far as I can tell, the Balkans have two major industries: Statue making and Filo pastry production (I lived almost entirely off bakery goods both times I went through the Balkans). I guess when you've been through as many wars as the people here have you'll have your fair share of heroes who need remembering, but instead of going for the plaque method favoured in other parts of the world, the Serbs just went ahead and made a statue of pretty much every man who ever pulled on the camouflage, and as a result have parks filled with statues spread all across the country.

Some other notable structures I visited while in Belgrade were the Belgrade Red Star stadium:

Where black football players come to have racist taunts thrown at them.

and the city's Orthodox church:

I'll be honest, despite my apathy for religion, I did feel a little nostalgia when visiting the orthodox church. My grandparents on my mothers' side are from Russia and so were brought up in the Russian Orthodox church. Thanks to the orthodox church following a different calender, this has meant two Christmases and two Easters every year when I was young (although you always got gipped on the second Xmas in the present department). Every few years we'd go to an Orthodox midnight Easter service and watch a funny man in outrageous clothes walk around swinging what looked like a fancy gold ashtray around, blowing smoke everywhere. I have no idea what any of this meant (maybe the Orthodox church believes the restaurant burnt Jesus' last meal), but it was all fun enough, and meant I got to stay up late when I was a kid.

Anyway, this church here did bring back some memories of when I was younger, but also introduced me to the fact that the Orthodox church is different from other churches in that it honours the chapter of the bible that details 'blessed are the OCD'. I discovered this while walking around the inside of the church admiring how 'look at me' massive it was, when I saw a lady kiss the door frame. This odd behaviour was then followed by her backing away from the church and crossing herself repeatedly until she was far enough away to revert to being a normal human being. After watching a few others do the same I figured out exactly what it takes to be a Serbian Orthodox member and not make God angry, and below have included the verses explaining each action:

Before walking through the doors, cross yourself three times
'...and he did cross himself thrice' - David 13:5

Then walk to the entrance, and kiss the door twice.
'..upon feeling the holy spirit, Samuel was caused great Joy, and did kisseth the church door, and in passion, did kisseth it again.' -Jeremiah 6:23

Walk up to the statue of the cross with Jesus upon it and kiss Jesus' nipples, alternating from right to left, three times, then kiss his forehead and his navel. Then cross yourself repeatedly.
'...and Mary Magdeline, being of experience, did most titillate Jesus. But such expert toungue work did make God jealous, and he did say unto her 'Mrs. God never did that for me before. That's a sin now', and she did repent for her sin, crossing herself until she was clean, whilst muttering silently unto herself.....' Mary 7:15

After this you are free to walk about the church, however upon leaving you must kiss the right door frame, then the left door frame, then the right one again.
'....and upon drinking the wine, and smoking the burning bush, Paul did begin licking the walls and did remark unto Jesus, 'These snozzberries tasteth of snozzberries', and Jesus did laugh, for he knew it was so.' Mark 4:22

Then you must take two steps back, cross yourself, take two more steps, cross yourself, two more steps, cross yourself, and repeat until God's magic bubble is no longer overpowering you.
'and Han did say, 'Chewie get us out of here', and did turn unto Luke and remark 'I hope that old man got those force shields down, or this is going to be a short trip'' - Lucas 8:11

Belgrade is also home to the burial site of Serbia's beloved dictator Tito. I'll be honest, I know pretty much nothing about the guy, but from what I can tell he seemed like one of the more balanced and reasonable dictators, and was a hell of a lot less genocidal than his successors. Anyway, I checked out his burial spot, and one of the more bizarre memento collections I've ever seen. Every year the youth of Serbia would make baton's (think Olympic flame relays torches but without the fire) and then send them on relays throughout the land, which would get to Belgrade in time for Tito's birthday. It's actually kind of sweet, and shows that even for totalitarian dictators, the most cherished gift is the one that shows you care.

Much healthier than Gaddafi's Condoleeza Rice shrine, that's for sure. (For once that's based on the truth http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/gaddafi-condoleezza-rice-album-_n_936385.html)

I wonder if Tito was as kind when he received this statue of himself which portrayed him as cross-eyed?

Powerful, thoughtful......

Muhay!!

The Tito memorial museum did reveal however, that even in the most normal of dictators, there will still be the odd eccentricities, as was displayed by these bizarre little figurines featured in every display case, just in case you forgot who's place this was.

At least he changed up their colour a little.

As powerful and well respected Tito may have been, he was never portrayed in a movie by David Bowie. Someone who was, is Nikola Tesla, who's museum I visited next. Tesla has to be one of the most incredible scientists in history, combining humanity, personality, and rare intelligence, to create a legacy that has become larger than just the product of his experiments. While he may have been born in Croatia, and spent most of his life in the US, Tesla always identified himself as a Serb, and was keen for his possessions to be exhibited here when he died. The museum is really fun. It's only a small house, but the place does have a small Tesla coil, a few interactable exhibits, and a truly quirky tour guide, and was a lot of fun.

Tesla's ashes. Did this guy have style or what!

Yay, Tesla coil!

On the way back to my hostel from the Tesla museum I happened upon two of the most bizarre signs I've seen, but I eventually figured them out, though this made it no less weird. The signs were:

Warning: Couples Eloping.

No Eloping zone.

As I mentioned earlier, this hostel was a good one, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with the other travelers and the hostel owners. It also made up for the bathroom decorations I'd witnessed in Berlin, by going the exact other direction and being overtly heterosexual.

There you go, thank you for listening to my rant about the Schengen visa.

One other feature of this hostel was it had possibly the tightest security of any hostel in the world, thanks to the fact all the cops who were supposed to be on duty would come in and watch TV with us. Maybe as a reaction to the overzealous nature of the military policing the city, the local PD were beyond chilled out. We had, at times, between six to ten cops all just hanging out watching Family Guy and chatting with the hostel guests. Their walkie talkies would go off and they'd just turn the volume down, which would be a bit scary were it not for the fact that Belgrade felt about as safe as any city could feel.

One other place that was particularly beautiful in Belgrade was the old castle on the hill that overlooked the river. Up here there was a massive beautiful park, with a few massive statues (naturally), and a whole bunch of benches and soft green areas to sit and just take in the view. As with any site like this, it was populated most nights by all the lovers on dates who were trying to find somewhere romantic to get some alone time. I don't know what the Serbian is for 'make out point' but I bet that's what the place was called. But it wasn't just for lovers, with an amazing view for the tourists as well. From one side of the hill you look over the city, with the bridges, New Belgrade and all the historic quarter beautifully lit up.

From the other side of the hill, you look out over where the Danube meets the Sava river, and then with most of the foreground pitch black at night, you can see the faint lights of all the lit up cities in the distance.

The view from this spot reminded me of the view you get from an airplane window, and it really stirred up some emotions in me. Ever since I'd first flown across Europe on my way back from college in the US, I had really wanted to backpack across this continent. When you fly across the US, or Australia, you mainly look down upon blackness at night, with just the odd city to remind you where you are. But flying across Europe is so different, thanks to wedging so many people and countries into such a small space. You don't just get islands of lights, you feel like you can see the countries operating together almost like the circulatory system of some giant living organism. I still remember so vividly the lights below of the small towns, the roads connecting them to one another and then the brighter lights of the cities. There were many things that made me want to see Europe, but this sight made me want to see every inch, visit every lit up villa, see what historic, cultured, crazy sights I was witnessing from thousands of feet above. It still gives me goosebumps today, but standing here and witnessing it from the ground, and remembering that passion it had stirred in me, I genuinely got a little sentimental, realising those distant lights were no longer a mystery to me, but very real places which I'd been to and experienced. It was one of those rare moments in life where everything just seems perfect. Unfortunately, I was experiencing this moment with my headphones on, and I got the fright of my life as I walked off and accidentally stepped on some Serbian guys' naked ass, who was apparently experiencing the magic of make-out point a little differently to me.

After having a thoroughly enjoyable time in Belgrade, I was off to see a city that made Belgrade's recent history seem positively chirpy; the Bosnia Herzegovinian capital Sarajevo. I really feel sorry for Sarajevo. I don't think I've ever been to a city which is so proud of it's diversity, tolerance, and happy way of life, than Sarajevo. Sadly, for one reason or another it's been the centre of attention for armed conflicts many times in its' troubled history. Most famously it was here where Franz Ferdinand took history's worst detour, and got shot and killed on one of the towns' bridges, leading to WWI.

A quite beautiful bridge that started a very ugly war.

Given that the assassin wasn't a local, it was completely uncalled for that just a few years after Sarajevo had been the centre of the world's attention for something positive, the 1984 Winter Olympics, that the town be punished by being the focus of the longest military siege in the history of modern warfare.

I won't waste time going into the details of the siege, but what does stand out about it, was the unity displayed by the city's different religious groups. You can still see their celebrated diversity by the fact that there are mosques, churches, and jewish temples intermingled across the city. It's a fact that the locals are all very proud of, and considering the motivation behind the events that had transpired here, is quite remarkable.

Having partied quite hard in Belgrade, I decided to take it easy here, which was probably a good idea, because my hostel was populated by just myself. This actually was a lifesaving fact as it was even colder in my room here than it was in the Budapest hostel, and had I not have been able to steal all the other beds' blankets, and then bring the oil heater up to my bed and encase it within my igloo of blankets, I would have surely frozen to death.

The city of Sarajevo is set in a valley, with a river running through the centre. It's a quite stunning location for a tourtist town, with the green mountains hovering over the city from each side, but this feature which makes it so appealing now, made it hell on earth during the siege. The entire city was peppered by mortars and snipers from these beautiful but deadly surrounds, and you can see evidence of this everywhere. One of the memorials you can see here are called the 'Sarajevo roses'. Despite the pretty name, it commemorates truly horrific events, as the roses are created by pouring a red compound into the mortar holes left by mortars that caused the casualty of one or more locals during the siege. While the beauty of the flower like red shape this leaves may hide the true horror of the event it represents, I can't help feel it indicates the locals' ability to find beauty in a history so devoid of any reason for hope.

 Another poignant sight is the main stadium from the Olympics that were held here. Located right next to this are a few of the many many grave sites located around the city. The juxtaposition of one of the world's most recognisable symbols for peace right next to the victims of the war that followed so closely after was quite moving.

I think one of the most chilling places was walking down sniper alley. The main street of Sarajevo's business and residential centre is very wide; four lanes of traffic and a wide grassy area in the centre for trams. During the siege, people still needed to cross this area to be able to continue to live. However this wide space left them completely open to sniper fire, a tactical advantage that was exploited with horrifying efficiency. All over this part of town you can still see where the walls of buildings and the sidewalks are peppered with bullet holes.

One of the most astonishing remnants from the war is the Olympic bobsled track. Located up in the hills, the bobsled track was transformed into turrets when the siege occurred, as it was now the frontline for the battle.  It is also one of the more out of the way attractions in town, and quite hard to find directions to. Recently I had begun to notice a pattern in my travels. Whenever I asked directions to places, locals tended to always overestimate how long it would take me to get there. I'm not sure if this was a result of me being a fast walker, or locals trying to encourage travelers to take tours, but I was starting to back myself to be able to get to attractions without the need for an expensive, and often dull, tour guide. This strategy normally worked out fine, but going to the bobsled track had one extra hazard: land mines. There was an established path up the mountain, but I had been extensively warned not to go off track whatsoever. This made the walk up to the track pretty terrifying. As I walked up alone my mind did begin to think about what I'd do if I stepped on a mine. Of course I was imagining the cliche TV program mine where you step on the mine and arm the device, but it doesn't go off until you step off it (so you get much more dialogue and drama out of the situation). I found myself wondering what I'd do if I stepped on one and had decided that my strategy would be to twist my self so that while I would definitely lose a leg, I'd protect my genitals. My thinking was that while I could handle being the Aussie Pistorius, I had no desire to be a Ken doll.

Anyway, luckily for me, no such evasive action was required and I made it up no problems. The track was definitely worth the slightly dangerous walk up, as the track is still almost completely standing, however it is now riddled with bullet marks as well as holes created for firing through. It was also somewhat reminiscent of the Berlin wall, as it had now been turned into a massive canvas, although more just for taggers than any real art work. There are also a number of Olympic buildings around which were obviously used extensively during the conflict, with some of these bearing thousands of rounds of bullet marks.

It was a very striking place to visit, with amazing views across the valley, and beautiful forests surrounding it, but it was also quite horrifying seeing something intended for a display of how far humanity has come, bear the scars of how far we still have to go. I also got my own little dose of horror, when I made a friend at the top of the track. With no one else for miles, and only a land mine laden forest to run to, I met the tracks' unofficial guard dog. He greeted me with a growl and slowly and warily prowled towards me. I decided to just stay as still as possible and wondered whether dogs were like sharks and would retreat if punched in the face. Luckily for me, despite his reddish looking eyes, he didn't turn out to be rabid or angry, and we parted ways both in one piece (I totally could've taken him). Undomesticated dogs are actually quite common around the Balkans, and I was completely used to seeing them around the cities. I'd actually seen a hilarious incident in Belgrade where a pack of street dogs started barking at a great dane who was being taken for a walk. The sight of a quite large Serbian lad struggling with every ounce of strength to restrain the pooch managed to stop the entire street as the quite impressive great dane went into full blown attack mode. However,. encountering a dog in the forest is a little different, but luckily I think he must get company often enough that he was pretty well trained. Either that or he was just full from eating the remains of some German backpacker who's blown up while going for a pee in the forest.

The site the locals are probably most proud of is the tunnel they built during the siege that passed under the airport runway. This was the lifeline to the city during the siege as it was the only place where supplies could come in and out. The tunnel itself is no longer operational, but small sections are still maintained. The museum attached to it gives a great account of exactly how vital and significant the tunnel was, and it was one of the few real victories the locals achieved.

While my account of Sarajevo obviously focused on the war sites, I don't want to give the idea that the city is depressing. It was a really fun, and in places, beautiful city, and I imagine during summer, or winter for that matter given the ski fields, it must be an unbelievable centre of outdoor activity. The city is still rebuilding, and slowly erasing the physical evidence of their grim past (even the Roses are being replaced), but it now just feels like a forward thinking diverse city, with an old part of town with markets, amazing food, and hand made goods, and the new part of town featuring all the mod cons of a normal city.

From Sarajevo I took a short trip to another beautiful Bosnia-Herzegovinian (I wish they just called it Bosnia, so much easier to pronounce, the two should just seperate...) city, Mostar. This is definitely a one day stay kind of town, which is exactly what I did. The town is extremely picturesque, and also the sight of a siege during the war as, like Sarajevo, its' natural valley were turned from an asset to the source of its' downfall by the invading forces. Mostar is nothing more than a beautiful little town, and it continued the Balkans reputation with me for being paradise. With my one day in town I walked around the ye olde cobblestoned town centre, checked out their world famous old bridge (you may have seen it in high dive competitons) and then went for a hike up to a giant cross that overlooks the town.

This is yet another example of the religious tolerance of this country, that despite the fact the Orthodox Serbs had tried to ethnically cleanse the predominantly Islamic Bosniaks, Bosnian towns could still observe such religious tolerance as to allow such a massive sign of a previously enemy faith above their town. After visiting Bosnia Herzegovinia you get the feeling that maybe we should send a few of them over to Israel and Palestine. They really have grasped the futility over bickering over bygones, and have been able to move forward without demanding vengeance, and while practicing tolerance.

After one night in Mostar, I hit the road to Kotor, Montenegro. This ended up being the perfect final destination in the non-Greek Balkans. Despite visiting many beautiful places in my travels around Europe, the Balkans really have stood out for their natural paradisaical beauty. It's been the one location where I've actually enjoyed the long trips between destinations, thanks to the amazing scenery (which is lucky because thanks to the destruction from the war, the relatively short trip as the crow flies from Belgrade to Sarajevo takes about 11 hours, including 3 different border crossings). I knew Kotor would be special as I had originally been told about it by a few of the people at Dragan's Den in Korcula. Up until that point, Korcula had been my definition of paradise, yet everyone insisted Kotor was better. And right they were, this place was ridiculous. You know how in pharmaceutical ads for medicines that treat upset stomachs they always have that cartoon diagram showing the stomach as a round circle at the end of a long tube inside an outline of a body. Kotor is set on a bay which is pretty much like that stomach (although with no bubbly red liquid which is turned to white by Gaviscon). There is a long and narrow stream leading in from the Adriatic Sea, which then opens up into a huge circular inlet. This bay is surrounded by huge mountains towering up above it which does a great job blocking the wind, meaning the water in this inlet is only disturbed by the occasional boat that sails across it, and spends the rest of the time acting a mirror for the beautiful peaks above. Kotor itself is comprised of a walled historic district, whose wall extends up the mountain that overlooks the town, and then joins up with an old castle fort. Behind this are more mountains that continue to stretch up into the clouds. These mountains have many walking tracks, and are covered with ancient ruins, one or two houses, and a whole mess of goats. I'll let the pictures do it justice:

The fort from further up the mountain.

Goat

Evening view from the fort

The city wall both in the foreground, and snaking up the mountain in the background.

I originally intended on staying in Kotor for two nights, but ended up not leaving for about a week. I've stayed at some amazing hostels during my trip, but while some may equal, none shall better the Old Town Hostel in Kotor. It had everything. The whole place was in a hundreds of years old building in the middle of the historic area, but was still extremely modern and comfortable. It offered free communal dinners every night, which brought everyone together and made the place the site of a party pretty much all the time. And most importantly, it had a manager who was the perfect balance between crazy and chilled out. While you will often find hostel owners who are either really laid back, or really crazy, it's rare to get one who combines calm competence with an ability to start up a party out of nowhere, while not having the overbearing personality type that means he has to be the centre of attention. But this place had that. To illustrate just how this awesome this guy was, you would find yourself supplied with a cup of coffee within seconds of coming down in the morning, whether you ask for it or not, and he would be inquisitive about your plans for the day, and suggest any ideas that could supplement them. But then the moment someone mentioned the fateful words 'What is Raki?' he would transform into a party pimp, and immediately pour shots of Raki (the Balkan spirit which accompanies everything and tastes like paint thinner) for everyone within hearing distance. He was easily the best judge of the mood of a room and which direction to take it in, and was a big part of why so many people who stayed here left feeling like they were part of a family.

I was also lucky enough to be there at a time where we had a really cool group of travelers staying. There were people from all over staying, and one night after dinner, once the drinks have really started flowing, we played a game of international 'Never have I ever' during which I managed to make my Japanese friend, Yusuke, drink on 'Never have I ever brought used panties from a vending machine'. I also met a German guy who went off track mountain/rock climbing with me, and an American girl, Babs, who is currently traveling while working as a writer and a photographer, who I got a lot of advice from regarding my potential future career paths.

But without a doubt the star of Kotor was mother nature. Every day I found myself exploring it in some new way. The first afternoon I was there, I headed up the path to the fort, and then continued up until I reached a spot where I could see the sun set over both the bay, and the Adriatic.

The view to the left...

The view to the right.

While waiting for the sunset did result in me having to leg it back down the hill so I didn't get caught on the mountain in complete darkness, it was so unbelievably worth it. I reventured up the mountain a second time with my German friend, and we decided to go a slightly different route, ignoring the path, and making a beeline straight up the mountain. This ended up being a lot of fun as well as a pretty bloody good full body workout. Another excursion I took was when I rented a battery powered motorised bicycle and went for a spin around the lake. The only downside of this bike was I'm pretty sure I scared all the locals who thought the Hell's Angels were in town.

Grrr.

I will definitely be returning to Kotor one day, as I would love to have experienced some of the ways of exploring the bay by water, as it was too cold to dare do anything like that when I was there. But it was a perfect send off from this region for me and I was ready for my bus ride to Greece.

At least, I thought I was ready. While war is now a gladly fading memory in this region, there are sadly some hangovers that still affect travelers. One of these is that there is no simple or direct way of getting to Greece from Kotor, despite the fact they are only separated by the relatively small Albania. My journey to my first destination in Greece could've been a 7 hour drive along just under 600km of roads. Unfortunately it turned into a bit of an Odyssey. I've included a reference map to help you understand:

Blue is the ideal route, Red is the actual route.

First I had to take a local bus for a couple of hours to the nearby city Podgorica. This part of the journey went quite smoothly, but here the smoothness ceased. I then had to catch an overnight bus to Skopje, Macedonia, with a brief stop over in Prizren, Kosovo. This sounded simple, and nothing different to what I had been doing for the last half of a year. Unfortunately this turned into the bus ride from hell. 

I was travelling with Yusuke, the Japanese guy from my hostel in Kotor, and we both managed to snag double seats to ourselves. I was all ready to bunk down for a good nights sleep, when it became quite apparent that the Kosovoan guys around weren't going to stop the conversation that they had quite animatedly started upon boarding. It's not like they were friends, they just decided to talk as loudly as possible for most of the trip, which on an overnight bus is about as rude as walking around with your pants down turkey slapping all the other passengers. But this alone wouldn't have ruined the trip. I have earplugs, and even better, an iPod, which would block them out and let me kip without any problems. But as you can see from the diagram above, we crossed a few million borders during the trip, each of which required a passport check. We had passport checks at the following:

Montenegro to Albania

Albania back into Montenegro

Just for fun Montenegro back to Albania one more time

Albania to Kosovo (It's not even a real country!!!)

Each of these required a stamp out then a stamp in, and took for ages, but the worst part was it meant that if the guys at the back who were yelling at each other had somehow run out of things to talk about and fallen asleep, they would then be woken up again so they could rehash the intellectual discussion previously broached. Even worse than this was that this gave them a chance to find out I was Australian. After one brief moment of wit where one of the Kosovan guys offered to exchange passports, them knowing I was foreign got old reaaaaaally quick, especially when the same guy kept doing the same gag every fucking time we stopped at a border. A low point was definitely reached when I finally managed to get a little sleep only to have one of the guys in the seat behind me reach over and shake me awake so that his mind numbingly simple mate could point at me, say 'Australia', then mime a kangaroo, all while I stared daggers at him in semi-lucid disbelief. Pair this with a bus conductor who came back and woke people up because he thought there might be someone with smelly feet and he wanted to find the source (before any wise cracks pop up, it totally wasn't me for once), and the one guy who spoke English being just about the creepiest human being alive (he kept suggesting I leave the bus whenever we had our all too frequent toilet and cigarette stops, and reassuring me that he'd watch my bag), and this was easily the worst bus trip of my life. It only got worse when we arrived in Prizren at 4am to find that the station was essentially closed until 7am, and that our bus wasn't for another 5 hours, meaning we got to hang around uncomfortably in the cold bus station, with the annoying, and now increasingly creepy, Kosovans. 

After an awkward few hours where the douchebag Kosovan crew from the bus hassled the asian travelers  with blatant racism ('Ha ha, look, I have Asian eyes now, unnnhhhhhhh'), and Yusuke and I sat around freezing our asses off while trying to figure out when our connection was, we finally were back on a bus, sans idiots, and ready to finally get to Skopje. After a couple of hours nap on that bus, we arrived all too soon in Skopje, to find that the last (and only) bus to Greece for the day had left at 7am. By this stage we were done with this part of the world and just wanted to get to Greece. It was lucky we were traveling together, as it meant we could hire a taxi for only marginally more than bus tickets (despite it being a 3 hour trip). Our cabbie was a really nice guy, and took us to a place so we could grab some breakfast before we headed off, and then we both passed out for the rest of the trip. After what seemed a very short drive (got in, fell asleep, woke up) we arrived in Thessaloniki, where it was only two more buses to Meteora, and after a nightmare 28 hour trip, we were finally in Greece.