Trieste, Italy

I arrived in Trieste a bit confused. The map in my book made me think that Trieste was in Slovenia and not Italy. I wandered around trying to find a suitable spot for me to swim. I asked a passerby in broken Spanish where the beach was, thankfully she understood and pointed me in the direction of the swimming area.

Greek warship

I got to a small organized area with changing rooms, lounge chairs and such. It was 3.50 Euro to get in and use their facility. Having taken a train all the way from Venice I wasn’t going to let 3.50 Euro get in my way of taking a dip.

After I changed, I realized that the area wasn’t a beach or even a shore line. It was a series of concrete docks and patios. There were various areas to jump off of and into the roped off swimming area. There were tons of excited children jumping off the docks, and I of course joined them. I love jumping off things!

I swam around for a bit and discovered two diving boards. Both were already elevated high above the water because of their relative position on the high docks. On top of that one was also a high dive with a nice big fall in store for whoever decided to climb up the slippery steps. Figuring that I better jump off the high one I ran up the steps and had an exhilarating time plunging into the sea.

After a great time of swimming and diving I laid out on the upper patio and probably fell asleep for a while. Taking a cold shower without soap, I considered myself “clean” and changed into my street clothes and headed out toward the train station looking for a grocery store.

The town was beautiful! There were hardly any tourists present as I strolled through. I certainly felt like I was off the beaten path a bit, which I enjoy.

 

I found a grocery store and got myself a bag of croissants, a can of tuna fish (in water), a package of cheese, and a box of wine which I had to get because it was only 0.89 Euro! I headed toward the train station and got my schedule for my journey to Rome and then headed back outside onto a park bench. I have become more and more accustomed to dining on a park bench.

Today I was in a beautiful park in Italy and certainly not alone. There were several other clearly either homeless and or mentally unstable joining me in the park. Some of them eyed me with curiosity and stared while others accepted me as “one of their own” and let me be. Due to my lack of personal hygiene over the past several days, the added spunk of salt water in my hair and my ever growing aptly named “homeless guy- beard” I was not bothered.

Because I had not eaten much over the last few days my box of 0.89 Euro wine started to kick in rather early. I staggered back to the train station chuckling at myself along the way, trying not to lean against the walls too much. I headed for the convenience store inside the train station and although I knew it was a bad idea at the time I still decided to buy a gigantic bag of potato chips, and 500 grams, roughly  a quarter of a gallon, of gelato.

Giant bag of potato chips

I picked a seat among others waiting for the train and started eating my chips, wine and cherry swirl ice cream. I ate the entire thing in about 20 minutes. When I was almost done I really realized that it was a terrible idea for me to eat the entire thing. Once I finished it I swore off buying 500g containers of ice cream… for a while.

Before I got on the train, I made sure to brush my teeth in the bathroom and try to “freshen up” a bit. It is at this point in Italy that I realized that my Italian journey was going to be absolutely insane. I had no couch surfers for my stay in Italy except my last night. Most all of the Italians on couch surfing were male and had only requested to have female visitors, of the small percentage that I could stay with, many were either busy or on vacation themselves. Being cheap, I knew I wasn’t going to spring for a hostel or hotel or anything like that, so I tried to plan my journeys at night and far enough away that I could sleep on the train ride.

Over the next few days in Italy I had a very hectic schedule of taking a train from one town to another to another to connect to a train to get to someplace else. Most of the time I didn’t really know where I was, I had to take pictures of the town I was heading toward on the schedule sheets so I could remember. I found myself in all sorts of places over the next few days.

Sedrun, Switzerland

Something great about Switzerland is that everyone wears hiking boots.

The train ride to Sedrun was breathtaking. The train traveled along cliffs high in the Alps giving all the passengers spectacular views of rivers, valleys, mountains and birds’ eye views of some of the towns along the way. I was absolutely mesmerized by the sheer beauty surrounding me. My couch surfers from Zurich had invited me to stay with them at their parents’ cabin in Sedrun. When they showed me to the room I would be staying in, I could not believe the view from my window. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. Shuttered windows, perfect drapes and wooded framed windows opening up to a gorgeous view of the Alps brought a vast smile to my face. I had arrived just in time for dinner. Christine made some excellent pasta before we headed out to join in the festivities of National Day.

How cute is this…

We found our way to the center of town where it seemed like everyone was gathered to celebrate. The area was decorated with Swiss flags, and the state flags. In addition there was a band playing traditional music and they were serving sausage and beer. We jumped right in and got ourselves some of the local brew, and brats. The music was strange but I enjoyed listening to it and being a part of another countries national day.

Children are given Swiss flag – paper lanterns with a candle inside. Once they were lit, they started walking down through the town to a giant bonfire with us in tow. While standing near the bonfire it was really cool seeing the hillside with a scattering of lanterns from all of the children. After the sun went down fireworks began from all areas. Also, bonfires started to appear everywhere. You could see bonfires on all of the surrounding hills, and on some occasion’s fireworks accompanying them. It was a fantastic night.

We headed back and went to sleep rather early. In the morning after breakfast I headed out to catch a train back to Zurich. Along the way the train stopped in Disentis for a bit. I decided to get out and do some exploring even though it was starting to rain. I began walking around the very small town and admiring the quaint buildings and churches. I started walking around the outskirts of a church to find one of my friends’ last names, Loretz. I was surprised to find it several times. By this time the rain has started to become a downpour and I was totally soaked. My coat kept me fairly dry, but my shoes were seriously soaked, and I was pretty cold. I headed for a nearby monastery to get out of the rain for a while before heading back to the train station.

I enjoyed my ride back through the Alps to Zurich where I caught a connecting train to Bern.

Zurich, Switzerland

Arriving in Zurich, I met up with my couch surfers Christine and Jens, they were very friendly people and we got along great! They even let me use their washer and dryer. I was surprised to find that they had a dryer, it was the first I had seen in Europe. But upon opening it, I noticed that they used it for storage of extra toiled paper. People just air dry their clothes, which I have become more of a fan of. For dinner we had a wonderful Swiss dish where by cheese is melted in small personal “frying pans” and then drizzled over potatoes, tomatoes and other mouth watering foods. It was ridiculously delicious. Real Swiss cheese is the BEST!

These are the spatula/frying pans used to melt the cheese on the potatoes

Which created this delicious meal

We decided that I would see the majority of Zurich in the morning, then see Lucern and then accompany them to Sedrun, a small town in the Alps for National Day festivities. Christine and Jens were biking towards Sedrun while I explored.

First stop was Zurich.

Zurich is a beautiful city, which I had the pleasure of visiting on August 1^st, National Day, very similar to the 4^th of July, in the USA. Situated on a lake, it has a river flowing through the heart of the city. Along the banks you find magnificent buildings, clock towers, and bridges. Walking through the old streets made of cobble stone, I couldn’t help but smile. Everyone seemed very happy, everything was clean, organized, just how I like. I got to see a church with the largest clock face in Europe!

I took a boat tour of the city. The bus ticket is good for use on the boat as well, which takes you up the river and into the lake a ways. I was able to get a nice vantage point of the city. It was so relaxing that I may have even fallen asleep when we were out on the middle of the lake. J However, as we got closer to town I certainly couldn’t rest anymore due to the chiming of the bells on all of the clock towers. The amount of bell noise was astounding, and being in the middle of it all was even more intense!

After hopping out of the boat I raced to the train station to catch the next train to Lucern. Since it was National Day I bought a special bread that is sold only on August 1st. It comes with a little Swiss flag sticking out of the top, it is a delicious bread!

Happy to have my bread!

Berlin, Germany

 

We arrived in Berlin in the morning via the strange train from Poland. Berlin was beautiful. As I got off the train I realized that my bag lock was stuck again! If you remember from India I had a lock for my bag that I had to bust open with a can opener. Carmen brought me my sisters old lock (identical to the one I was using earlier) after several days it too became stuck. So, being skilled at breaking apart locks with a can opener, I reached into my bag and pulled it out, starting to pry it apart on a bench in Berlin. I was successful at breaking into it and destroying the lock.

I was very impressed by Germany, it was very clreean and organized as I figured it would be. We caught the S – Bahn into town, (S – Bahn stands for Schnell Bahn, or Fast Train). We wandered around for a bit and then found the Berlin Wall.

Their was a historical marker with some information about the wall and the division of Germany, and about the art along the wall. They had hired twenty some artists from other countries to paint on the wall. Some of the spaces were very interesting, some cute and some confusing. My favorites were of course the ones with Batman on them.

and who could forget Mr. Potato Head!

The area where the wall is the longest and has the paintings is called the East Side Gallery

After the wall, we basically explored Berlin for the rest of the day. It was beautiful. We saw the gates at one end of the city, many of the historical buildings and sights. Along our way of exploring we decided to try to get some German food at a local resturant. We were reading a menu in German doing quite well and about to order when the waitress realized we wernt from around these parts.She asked if we  wanted to trysome Berlin food, we said of course and give us whatya got. The drink below is Beer. Green Beer, very tasty with a hint of lemon lime in it. The food we got was a giant piece of pig. I say pig and not pork because it still had the skin and some of the hair on it! She warned us that it would look disgusting but taste… Amazing! She was right on both things.

We could not find any couch surfers that could host us in Berlin, as they were all either out of town or busy with other people. We tried looking for hostels but found that they were about 20 € a head which would have been about the price of a hotel room, very expensive. So, I had a crazy idea, why not take a night train someplace and sleep on the train see the place for a day and then come back to Hamburg Germany. So, the next train to Copenhagen Denmark was our decision, however it was overbooked so we had to wait until the train at 5.17AM, we slept in the train station…

and woke up at 5.15am and then ran to the train, which left right as we got up to it. CRAP! We missed our train! No worries, we got on the one that left about an hour later…

We were then on our way to Denmark!

Warsaw, Poland

Arriving in Warsaw Poland we met up with our couch surfers in the evening. They took us on a drive around the city and showed us some of the monuments and sights to be seen. It was a very nice city. We then went to a very cool cafe where they like to go and sat and ate a bit with our hosts, they are very nice people and we got along great with them. We picked up a bit of Polish and then headed out for a tour of the old town by night. It was very pretty. Old monuments and buildings just seem to look so much prettier at night with the lights hitting them just right.

We meandered through the old town square where there sat a mermaid on a fountain thing. It wasnt a fountain persay it just stayed wet, so it occassionally threw up water around the base. It scared our host pretty bad when he was trying to take a picture next to it.

Fire Dancers

 I think fire dancing was invented when someone accidentally lit their ribon dancer on fire and kept going…

 

That evening we sat around with them at their flat telling  jokes and sharing YouTube videos, such as Powerthirst, Mandles, and Sleepwalking dog.

The next day we caught up on some much needed rest and slept in all day.

Later in the evening on the way to the train station we passed by a park where we played for a bit on a spiderweb thing. Childrens parks in other countries are so cool! They are not safe at all. So far ive seen Pirate Ships, and high rope-like spiderwebs that you could totally fall off of and break your neck.

On our way to the train station we tried to find a geocaching spot for Carmens mom. It was near a hospital, we searched around for a good hour or so in the dark near a creepy hospital building in Poland before giving up and getting to the station…

 

At the train station we had an interesting experience with our train to Berlin. The woman at the ticket counter did not want to help us at all. She was quite rude to our Polish friends and only told them that the train was coming from Russia, and that she didnt know how much it was going to be.

Knowing very little we went down to the platform and awaited a mystery train. A blue train arrives with Cryllic on it and we knew it was ours. A woman dressed in normal clothes guarded the door with a displeased look on her face. Our polish friends tried to communicate with her and after some debating we managed to get on board. It did not seem like they wanted to let us get on the train. We stood in the hallway of the train for a little while while they gave us dirty looks and ushered us around the hallway, back and forth back and forth, they would usher us this way and that and into a small room that looked like a cabin but was actually one of the ladys private cabins. We were very confused about where we were going to stay. At this point we still had no idea how much it was.

Finally we got into a cabin with one other gentelman from Poland who told us it was 50€ for the train. We made our beds and tried to sleep.

Before going to poked my head down to her bunk below and told Carmen (my travel buddy) that I have heard on Russian night trains they gas people and then go through their stuff and take things.

I am assuming that is not true, but who knows. So far Im not missing anything… I think.

Varna, Bulgaria

On my last night in Sofia my couch surfer took me to a good resturant where he had been before. The menu was Bulgarian with a little English. He made a mistake and ordered something a bit strange, “what is it” I said… “fried yellow cheese”. It was pretty funny seeing him eat cheese for dinner, so I of course gave him some of my meal which turned out to be some strange combination of meat and salad and french fries. Also the cheese they have in Bulgaria is either Cheese (meaning white cheese) or Yellow Cheese.

Fried Yellow Cheese

Train Station in Sofia

Creepy dimly lit underground area near the train station

After my visit in Sofia I hopped on an evening train to Varna, Bulgaria which is on the Black Sea coast. I slept on the overnight train and wandered around the city trying to follow my couch surfers directions, finally I found a taxi driver who was taking a Bulgarian, a Russian and an American (me) wherever we wanted at a reduced rate, the Russian girl helped figure out where it was that I wanted to go, which was great considering I had no clue as to where it was I needed to go.

Upon getting to wherever it was I needed to go, my couch surfer met me and we immediately went swimming in the Black Sea. It was beautiful, the Sea was very calm and the water was astoundingly clear! It was really nice. I saw a few small jelly fish a few bottom feeders and this strange fish that kept trying to follow me around it was very small and swam on the top of the water. Becasue it took an interest in me I didnt want any of it and kept trying to get away from or spash it away from me.

In the Black Sea

Fish that wouldnt leave me alone

After basking in the sun we headed to find some traditional Bulgarian food. I started off with a “Shopska Salad” not sure how its spelled, and this baked chicken and mushroom dish. It was fantastic. I also found some of the first dark beer I had seen in Europe. As we were talking about couch surfing two Australians called him about his couch which I had intended on sleeping on, up until a few hours earlier when I decided to take the night train out of Varna to Bucarest, Romania.

We met up with the Australians and walked around the city for a few hours and had a nice leasurely time strolling through Varna.

Next to a light house with St. Nick

PS the z and the y on this keyboard are switched making typing verz difficult, please ignore anz and all errors

Sofia, Bulgaria

Arriving late put a bad taste in my mouth for the city because unfortunately the night highlights the negative aspects of a city just right and as you all know, first impressions mean everything, even for a city. On my first real day here in the city, I wandered around trying to find cool things to look at. I of course tried really hard to avoid any museums or churches that required money.  Which by now most of you know that I am fairly good at it. I wandered to one of the grandest churches in the city, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and I saw St. Sofia Church, the Russian Church “St. Nikol” and I saw a government area which is the administrative headquarters for Bulgarias presidency, every hour on the hour the guards changed. I was very hungry walking around and wanted to find some food, unfortunately the alphabet here is Cyrillic which I of course do not understand, at first I was a bit worried that I was going to have to point to something in the middle of a menu and hope that it was good. But at a stand selling kebaps and burgers I met a man who spoke English, he gave me a hambuger type thing. There was a lot of stuff on it, and it was amazing! It was like a cross between a Burger, a Gyro and a Turkish Doner Kebap, there were french fries on it, taziki sauce, mayonnaise, meat, ketchup, more mayonnaise cucumber, chili powder/sauce not sure which, and some other stuff, it was amazing.

I walked back to my couch surfers apartment, which I found after wandering through some neighborhoods that looked a bit sketchy. I finally found the National Military Museum, which is next to his house. Its great, you can wake up and look out the window and see a Mig, or a tank looking at you, or trucks with rocket launchers on them.

After Simon returned home we went out for a bite at a local ale house, it was very clever in that they had poor spouts for the beer at each table with a meter that measures the amount you drink in liters, at first we thought it was measuring in money, so we were mislead and unfortunately did not enjoy the end result of that. The food was great! Fairly inexpensive but delicious. Later we took a crazy cab (the driver must have been from India, because he had a total disregard for the lanes) to a student area of the city where after a while we went “cosmo” bowling, it was a lot of fun, bowling in Bulgaria. After bowling we walked by another stand that sold the crazy burgers, I of course needed to get one of them and man was it good!

Thessaloniki, Greece

I arrived in Thessaloniki late in the afternoon met my couch surfer and went back to his house, while he was studying his cousin and her two friends invited me to go with them to see a Greek play. I thought that was pretty cool because I think the Greeks invented Drama. The play I saw was called “The Lady” apparently it was about a band of robbers trying to steal a painting I think, but I am not 100% sure. I could not understand any of it, but it was fun to see a play in a different language. When we got out of the play it was raining really hard, it was crazy, the streets were overflowing in places and there were bits of loose trash flowing in the current down the streets. I was with  one of the girls who couldn’t get her arm brace wet due to an injury, so it was pretty difficult for us to keep it dry while everyone got soaked to the bone. The girls made spaghetti it was really good. While we were eating two girls from Iceland came to the house too. My couch surfer was hosting me and two girls from Iceland at the same time. It was really cool staying in a house full of people to talk with and learn about one anothers cultures. The next day we took a walk to the castle on the top of the hill and saw a beautiful view of the city and of the Gulf of Thessaloniki further down the road was an old city wall tha protected the city a long time ago, at one end there was a castle, in the middle was a rotunda with frescos depicting Jesus Christ and other religious symbols and at the very end near the sea was the beautiful White Tower which is not white. After relaxing at the waterfront for a while we walked to a great Greek resturant where we got a smorgasboard of food it was of course, amazing.

The next day I hoped on a train to Sofia, Bulgaria. I was really excited that I had an entire room to myself and that it was a non-smoking train. Then I realized that no one pays attention to the signs and it makes me very upset. Those of you who know me know that I cannot stand smoke/ing and it was coming right into my area so I had to put on a mask to try to give myself some decent air to breathe, which of course didn’t work as well as I wanted it to. I really wanted to go to the cabin next to mine and throw them off the train, but of course I refrained.

(not happy)

I arrived in Sofia at 11:30PM and I wasnt sure if it was Sofia or not, so I went out to ask someone, and there was no one on the train. It was dark in this seedy looking train station at midnight and I didn’t hear anyone get off the train, yet there was no sign of anyone and only a few people outside the train, not a trainload thou. I gathered my belongings and steped off the train into what felt like dozens of peering eyes, a big disgruntled man saw me and started to follow me into the train station I was walking toward what looked like a security guard just in case, but as I figured he was a cab driver following people around. I tried to call my couch surfer but for some reason I didn’t have the exit code right and couldn’t get ahold of him. Great, stuck in a train station at midnight and I can’t get ahold of my host while a bunch of seedy people lingerd about. Then I saw a man who looked clean cut and like he spoke English, he let me use his phone and my host said he would meet me at the station in 20 min. I told my new friend that my ride would be here in 20 min. We started talking a bit more as creepy guys came up to us asking if we needed a cab. He turned to me and said you really shouldn’t wait here. So we moved inside just as a lady was locking the doors. While inside we got kicked out because the train station was closing. So, outside on the freshly rained pavement my new friend told me that this area was really not safe for either of us, so we walked across the street to get away from who knows what. He was kind enough to wait with me until my ride arrived, relieved I got into a cab with him and headed home.

I hadn’t eaten in quite some time, so we walked to a 24 hour restaurant where I ordered a Bulgarian style pizza and my couch surfer ordered a salad, which was just a bowl of cut up tomatoes. It was pretty funny.

Bulgarian Pizza