Sherry L Huckabee

New Year's Slideshow

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Memories of years past to honor the year to come.

The CS State of Mind

Somewhere along the path I’ve walked the last few years, studying various spiritual disciplines, participating in both eastern and western practices to align mind, body, and heart, learning to be still enough to hear the small whispering wise voice inside even when I am moving, a strange thing happened in my perception. I try often to explain it but am never quite sure how to make it make sense to another. It is not a mentally calculated way of perceiving – the way you see an expression change or a body tense and deduce what created the change. It is a sensation, an actual physical sensation albeit a bit amorphous. It is akin to the feeling when you are in a large house and you sense a door has opened or closed to the outside – not because you hear it, but because you actually feel a change in the air on your skin or the shift in pressure somewhere inside your body. You can’t tell in that moment what door has opened or how it was opened or by whom. You can only feel some notable change in the invisible air around you. Then you can start deducing – ‘oh my wife must have just come home’ or ‘I must not have closed the back door’ but you can’t really be sure what it is until one of your other senses affirms it or you mentally deduce the cause.

I feel these shifts in people’s energy now. I can’t explain why they are there or what they are about, but I can feel them, literally feel them in my body. I feel hesitancy and engagedness and other subtle variations around what I can only term as being open or being closed - a pressure change when the door to their mind or heart closes or when it opens, when they have withdrawn or extended. Sometimes this energetic tuning receives feelings, though this happens far less and usually only where there is some strong personal connection. Interestingly, I can sense an evil intent more readily than sorrow or joy – a sense I’m sure has saved me from challenged situations many times during my travels. Perhaps it is simple intuition. Or perhaps intuition is simply the ability to perceptibly feel the energetic vibrations of others.

This perception, whatever it is, has become neon-light-like when I talk couchsurfing to strangers, which I do everywhere I go. It is astonishing the speed with which many people slam closed their minds to the possibility that couchsurfing gives to the world. Sometimes I sense fear in the air as the metaphorical door slams. For a long time, I thought it was the fear of being wronged, hurt, betrayed. I have begun to wonder though, whether it is actually fear of a world where such genuine openness and generosity is possible. After all, power, and money, can only be held by closing others out. What would our world come to, where would we turn for safety and security, if we were to open our hearts, our doors, our borders, our bank accounts?

The ones who slam the door never come around. They smile politely, they listen and nod. But they will never even look at the site. I know it before I finish the description. The ones who close the door for “safety’s sake” will listen incredulously, but they do listen. They can’t imagine such a world, convinced as they are that the world is dangerous and people in it are not trust worthy, but something in them would like to. Then there are the curious ones, the ones who want to be convinced. They open the door a tiny crack, giving you a small window of opportunity to share your experience, tell them that it works. They want to believe and some of these someday may just try it. And then there are those whose eyes light up at the possibility such a concept offers. I know when they walk away that they will create a profile in the next two days.

When people sign up I am filled with joy, excited anticipation for the experiences ahead of them. When people refuse the idea, tossing it in the trashcan where their faith in man lies wadded like an old piece of paper, it saddens me. I mourn the many wonderful experiences others will never have because they simply can’t contain the idea that this world is filled with kind, wonderful people who are eager to share a common bond with one another. I mourn too the isolation that comes from living in a world where one believes, fundamentally, that mankind does not warrant his own trust.

I think about the last ten little days of my life: the wonderful people I’ve met - Francesco, Flavio and the guys, Rositsa, Evan, Eldad, my wonderful new little family, Olrin, Ralitsa, Vladimir, Angel; the wonderful places I’ve been – looking out over the Roman sea, the view of St. Peter’s walking home with Francesco under a star filled sky, riding through the mountains of Bulgaria, dancing to Bulgarian MTV with my adopted family, walking the cobble stoned streets of Plovdiv, barefooted, with Ralitza by my side, and, of course, that glorious, heavenly, to-die-for pizza!

I left Ascoli just ten days ago, and in those ten days I have created a life time of memories, forged new lifetime friendships, and spent less than a dinner out at a nice restaurant back in the states. What a world this is when we open our hearts and minds to the possibility of genuine human exchange. You don’t have to cross an ocean to have these experiences. You don’t have to go to some exotic country. There are places, people in your own proverbial back yard who would love to meet and share stories over coffee, to show you their world through their eyes, to learn about yours through your eyes. Dreams of trips that were financially impossible quickly become possible when you take hotel costs out of the budget. Experiences are waiting to be had. Friendships are waiting to be made. So tell me. Why haven’t you created a profile?

Bohemian Days

Saturday, August 11, 2007

I’d like to say I “did” Budapest, but I really didn’t. Or, actually, in a way, maybe I did….

I sit at a wooden table on a cloth covered antique couch, eerie hookah-smoking-Indian music playing in the background. I expect any minute to look up in the tree outside the window and see the Cheshire cat grinning down at me as a puff of smoke rises from the caterpillar smoking his pipe perched upon a toadstool growing in the pot on the balcony. Where am I? Budapest of course. Where else would Alice in Wonderland seem so obviously reality?

Five days have passed, I have left this flat just once. I wish I could describe the easy air here. It is like living inside a symphony – the day rises and falls like a melody, punctuated by dark and light but no perception really of time. Hunger is a light wood wind, whispering its presence until it is satiated by a wedge of peach or slice of chocolate. Pot comes in like the solo piano, conquering everything around it, carrying us into some little hollow of the world where everything is mellow, easy, covered in lightly blowing gauze. The intimations of love making that we both know are intimations and not intentions are the violins teasing in the distance.

What have I done in the days since I arrived? Slept, smoked cigarettes, danced with Mary Jane, eaten bread and nuts and chocolate, slept more, smoked more, worked on the internet, wrote emails, slept again, chatted, burrowed, and licked my still open wounds from a love lost. My host is laid back, patient, easy, brilliant, a deadhead without a band to follow, and an anomaly of the highest degree; his salt and pepper hair, thick and burly in contrast to his smooth white alabaster skin; his careless nature opposing his sharp, keen intellect. I love anomalies. His home is a reprieve. Like Alice, I could easily get lost here amidst the sitar, chasing sunrays that drift through the tall windows, and losing myself in the green lights that follow my cigarette embers in the night. What am I doing here again?

Oh yes, something about writing a book. Or was it living a life? Or trying to find love or peace or something? Yes trying to find something I am looking for that I know I already have but don’t know that I have. My own backyard. Circling the world to get to my own back yard. What will I write? What will I do? Who will I love? Will they love me? Why are we here? Why do I care? Am I done yet? I ask this question when the darkness comes and light is forgotten. Am I done yet? Have I tried hard enough? Learned enough? Done enough? Laughed and cried and hurt and recovered enough? Enough yet? Because frankly sometimes I am tired, but of course, it is night, and the abyss still whispers in the night. And then the sun returns and I remember that there are more roads and more countries, more people to meet, smiles to share, tears to cry, languages and stories and histories to learn, more questions to ask, more answers to find, more pages to write, more love to give, and to receive.

I am in Budapest now, land of the Bohemians. I think I’ll stay awhile and ponder the unponderable pointlessness of all that has a point and the pointedness of all that is pointless. Drinking from the Danube, inhaling, breathing, crying, laughing, loving, life…

I stayed a week in Wonderland. As the clock ticked down to the appointed departure time, he played my favorite classical piece – Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor. The room filled with the vibration of the violin solo, as the song filled my soul with all that is life. I stand on the hill above and look down onto the patio, the door that opens into Wonderland, the observer now, on the outside looking in, where moments before I was inside looking out. The song still echoes within me, as if I were hearing it carried across the tips of the trees - its crescendos and descendos, its pain and joy and melody. I can still hear, still feel, the notes that carry you away and the silence between that leave you breathless and full and empty all at the same time.

The wind blows across the hill, winds of time, of love, of loss, gently lift my hair, caress my skin, carrying the past toward the future. The future, always moving toward the future. We can look back, but we cannot stop the movement forward, even in the looking back. The wind blows. Time flows. Where am I going to? Can I follow these melodious string vibrations into the sun, the light I saw yesterday streaming through the trees, casting me in a golden beauty that no one saw, that I fear no one will ever see. I feel the music deep inside, within my body, my heart, my mind, all that is woman in me and alive and hurting and joyous; raping me with fullness of feeling, pillaging my heart, ripping my soul to build it again, tearing me asunder to recreate me whole, phoenix from the fire, ashes from the man, scattered on wind carried to lovers who make love and bring me forth again. I want the words. Where are the words for this feeling inside me? “You cry easily,” he said. “It is beautiful.” Yes, beautiful and wrenching, I don’t know how to live so openly and not die with every moment. Is that what it is to live openly? To die every moment? To feel everything, everything in its fullness, its presence, and its inevitable departure. I die, with every moment past, every goodbye and am born with every new moment arriving. Each fills me and depletes me simultaneously. Breath in, breath out. Do others know this place? This raw, openness? This realness? Is this what others feel? Where am I going to? Evita cries as descend the stairs backpack on my shoulders, walkman playing in my ears. Don’t ask anymore….

What A Road Trip!!

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Wow… What a whirlwind week! I took the train from Pecs, Hungary to Ljubljana, Slovenia to meet Ivana for our car/camping tour through Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. We ended up doing side stops in Trieste, Italy and Herceg Novi, Montenegro, bringing our tally to twenty-three stops in five countries, and 2,200 kilometers in six days. Writing time was extraordinarily limited then came Budapest, then the states, and, then, to my heart’s delight Sighisoara. The post will necessarily be a work in progress until it is a finished work, as time allows. Kisses are simply more important right now. J

Surprising Slovenia

I was duly surprised by this small but geographically diverse country with its lovely turn of the century cities and little churches perched on hill tops throughout the countryside. From Mediterranean beaches to Alpine ski slopes, rolling valleys, and life sustaining rivers of the most amazing colors of grey and blue and green, Slovenia really does have it all.

Crossing the borders from Hungary, through Croatia, and into Slovenia, it was if some heavy weight lifted from my shoulders. Perhaps it was the storm the night before illuminating the night with old-oak-branches of lightening a vague color of purple, blasting and blowing the heavy heat from the Hungarian skies. There was a coolness to the morning air as I walked with the rising sun to the train station I hadn’t felt in days. The most striking thing as you cross the Hungarian countryside is the inconceivability that a land can be so frigging flat. Texas is flat but you can see forever. Hungary’s flatness never ends but with its scrubby little trees that gather in clusters and a markedly short horizon, you only see a little piece at a time. It gave me this strange sense of being jailed in the wide open.

Maybe it was the shift in the landscape from dry, endless plains to small suggestions of hills, to these rich, rolling, verdant green hills of Slovenia that follow one another with barely a breath between them like waves racing each other to a nearby shore. Whatever it is, the Hungarian heaviness has lifted from my body and heart. It was love at first sight for this countryside with its small houses and white-steepled churches gathered in clusters in the rare valleys or perched on the side of the hills in little clearings. The trees are the deep, dark green of evergreens, that mysterious, rich green of primordial forests past.

Ljubljana was another unknown name. I came here simply to meet my friend, knowing nothing of the town itself. Ivana and I had met at the CS London Calling gathering back in May and bonded over the scavenger hunt, which we won! We agreed to meet up again and travel her homeland of Slovenia together. Ljubljana just happened to be the town she was flying in to.

I was immediately as taken with this city as I was with the countryside. Beautiful turn of the century buildings line the cobblestone streets marking Ljubljana as one of the best preserved examples of baroque architecture in the world. It is simply lovely, a charming, inviting, tranquil city; the perfect blend between real life and quaint tourism appeal. It is undoubtedly a tourist city, but a new tourist city, given the greater ratio of backpackers to vacationers – you can always tell a city about to enter mainstream tourism because it is crawling with backpackers but still few vacationers. The river off the main square is lined with bustling sidewalk cafes and bars. Party energy hangs in the air and the night is rich with conversation of friends over drinks.

With Italy as its neighbor, Slovenia is interestingly influenced by the Italians and their culture. The Italian tourists were there in droves, their beautiful language filling my ears with its sweet melody. Some towns in Slovenia still require signs to be in both Italian and Slovenian and, though it may have been wishful thinking, I swear I could hear a slight cadence of Italian in the native Slovenian language.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day wandering the streets, winning the town a high ranking on my recommendation and someday-I-must-come-back list. I met Ivana and her best friend Tina after my delightful day of exploration and we headed to Ivana’s home town of Maribor. I was astonished as we crossed the country by all the little churches at the very tip-top of otherwise undeveloped hills scattered throughout the countryside - another reason to return for I would dearly love to explore every one of these quiet guardians of time.

Tina, her fiancé Matej, and I got acquainted over coffee before Ivana and I headed to her home and a wonderful home-cooked dinner prepared by her mom. This would be a dangerous place for me to live – I’d be 200 pounds in a month as good as her mother cooks!!! Afterward we took a late night stroll through the already long-asleep streets of Maribor. It too has a certain charm and grace though I ended up seeing very little of it. Our great plans for a Friday of Maribor sight-seeing slowly dissipated as we chatted away the morning, and then the afternoon too! It was good to have real girl talk time and we had much to catch up on about loves and life.

We finally dragged ourselves out around 4pm to ride the ski-lift up “Mount Maribor” (which is really just a hill – though a steep enough hill to rate a slalom course in the Olympics) and ride the little track go carts back down. Now that was FUN! After play time was provisioning time, preparing for our camping and road trip ahead. We loaded up on instant coffee and munchies before heading to Tina and Matej’s for the evening. It was nice to have a little suburban-life time - just sitting around and talking about their upcoming wedding, Ivana modeling her maid of honor dress, Matej laying out his clothes, and Tina showing me pictures of her dress while Matej wasn’t looking. They were such a great couple – I loved their ‘Ikea’ home and their “dinky” lifestyle (double-income-no-kids-yet). It was a delightful evening of conversation and laughter. They even invited me to their wedding though it is doubtful I could get back for the September 1^st date. Still it was nice to be invited. We parted with hugs and smiles and promises I would visit again.

Saturday morning it was time for Ivana and I to hit the road. We loaded up the car and headed for Lake Bled. Wow. What a place! Deep alpine-blue water surrounds Slovenia’s only island with a church perched at its center. Tourists are everywhere – walking, shopping, sunning on the grassy slopes alongside the lake. Actually, Lake Bohinj was our destination. We pitched our tent, rather precariously given the drought-ridden, rock-laden dirt, then headed to the nearby lodge for dinner. Dinner was good – but the complimentary blueberry schnapps in little chocolate cups – oh my goodness! That was a decadent delight! A storm was brewing as we finished up dinner and Ivana had work to do so we settled early into our tent, where we found to our tickled surprise we had a wireless signal! What an amazing world – google at your fingertips while camping! We frittered the night away to the sound of crickets beyond our tent flap and the cicada-like rhythm of two speed-typists within.

Sunday we broke down camp and headed to Bled, walking around the entire lake. It is really a wonderful tourist place with that easy tourist/camper vibe. We were on the road by early afternoon and headed to Slap Peričnik – a breathtaking double waterfall. I was wearing gypsy pants and flipflops but still managed not to slip on the rocky, wet terrain walking behind the waterfall, and looking through its transparent wall to the beautiful mountains and woods beyond. Nature is so amazing….

We crossed the Vršič Passage through the alpines and down again, crossing and re-crossing the Soča River, known for its unique ice-green color. We stopped near Bovec and descended to the river’s edge to stand in its glacier cold water.

Back on the road again as the sun was setting, we picked up a hitchhiker as we headed toward Kopper. Črt was a delight, easy going, and quite the good sport for our impromptu stops. First was the tiny hill town of Trst, a walled city with a beautiful though abandoned Italian garden. If I didn’t know better I would have thought we were in Italy. We continued on our way to Kopper but the signs for Trieste called too loudly to resist. How could I pass within a stone’s throw of my beloved Italy and not stop?!

Črt guided us to the center of town where much to our delight there was a concert going on in the incredible Piazza. Nothing like stopping by Italy for a glass of wine and a concert! It was late when we finally arrived at Alen’s, Ivana’s friend in Kopper. I had time on my own the next day to explore the little town. That evening, Ivana and I took a little tour of the nearby seaside towns – lovely jewels jutting out into the deep blue Mediterranean….

Captivating Croatia

Post to come – Driving the coast, Murter, Trogir, Dubrovnik

Moments in Montenegro

Post to come

Bounding through Bosnia

Post to come – Mostar and Sarajevo

Zagreb Adieu

Post to come

Pecs - Palinka, Hookah, and Wild Horses

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Pecs was my next stop after Szeged. Statistically, Pecs and Szeged are very similar. Both are university towns with about the same size population, percentage of students, and geographical area. While Szeged sits in the middle of the vast Hungarian Great Plain, Pecs sits on the side of a beautiful hill in the Transdanubia region. Both were in fierce competition to be named European Cultural Capital for 2010. Despite the similarities, however, my experience in Pecs (pronounced p-a-y-zj) was the opposite of that in Szeged.

The winds rolled in the night before I left Szeged and carried away some of the heat. This alone was enough to secure Pecs a higher place in my heart. Rudi, my host, met me at the train station. He is one of those amazing hosts – the ones like Slawek in New York, Kevin in France, Hans in Transylvania, and Vince in Switzerland – who have an open door CS policy and whose places swarm with couchsurfers and hospitality club members. Rudi’s place was a tornado-strewn mess but still managed to keep a welcome feeling amidst the piles of papers and clothes and dust. Rudi is a few years younger than me but still living his college years, in spirit if not in actuality. He was endearing in his boy-like charm and college-guy ease. He walked in that not-a-care-in-the-world way and chattered in an easy English, though it seemed he was always about half there and half not – probably playing World of Warcraft somewhere in his mind I would imagine.

I settled in a bit, checked emails, did my CS references, and took a shower before heading out for the evening. It was International Culture Week in Pecs and the streets were filled with young people from different countries talking heavily accented English. We made our way to the make shift open air theater – a stretch of green grass that lies between old Roman walls of the city to watch Mitsoura in concert. She was a tiny wisp of a thing, with a haunting, wailing voice pouring forth a mix of Hungarian and gypsy songs. At one point a fire dancer appeared before her wildly spinning two ropes that ended in huge balls of fire. I was entranced. Now my to-do list in life is one item longer – I want to learn how to fire dance!

Rudi went to pick up the CS couple arriving from Germany, leaving me in the care of his sweet friend Csaba to eat my Hungarian sausage and pickles and some inedibly hot white vegetable. Csaba was tall, thin like a willow-wisp with innocent, kind eyes and the sweetest disposition. He is just learning English and so conversation was slow as we sifted our way through words and their meanings.

We were sitting at the fair-like picnic tables amongst the little wood huts selling local wines and beer and the most amazing smelling sausage, when a homeless man approached us. He was obviously drunk, probably a tad off his rocker, but he had those child-like eyes of some lost souls – wise and curious, full of wonder and depth, yet focused in some other land rather than here. He asked us for money, not really looking at either us, but at some spot in the table. We politely refused.

He had just started to turn and walk away when he looked up and caught my eyes. He turned back to the table and began talking Hungarian intently to me. I looked at Csaba for a translation. “He said you are very beautiful.” I blushed under the intensity of the expression that had accompanied the words and said Köszönöm, thank you… The man kept chattering. Csaba translated, “Your eyes are beautiful, your face, your smile, your spirit. Very beautiful you are.” I smiled and thanked him again.

Then the man’s face got very somber – “Can I tell you something?” Csaba translated. I nodded. Then the old, wise, childlike homeless man took my hand in his and with heart-wrenching empathy stared deep into my soul and declared, “Beautiful women are always alone.”

Having just said good-bye to the only man in twelve years I’ve met who I really believed I could love forever, they weren’t very comforting words. Csaba and I laughed about it and I told the story laughing many times through the night, but the depth of sympathy in his eyes for a loneliness deep inside my soul together with words of eternity haunted my dreams through the night.

Rudi returned with our new German friends. Jakob and Sara were from Frankfurt and had come to look for an apartment for Sara who would be starting medical university in the fall. We walked about the city a bit, stopped at a pub for a beer where we chatted about Pecs, and Sara’s upcoming studies, and, of course, couchsurfing. It was actually Jakob and Sara’s first time couchsurfing so I was excited, as I always am, to tell them all I could about the community. It was an easy night of music and beer, enjoying the now-cool Hungarian wind, and new connections.

I set out early Monday for a stroll through the town. The Roman walls still separate the old town from the newer parts of the city, creating a predominately car free historic center. Under Roman rule the town was known as Sopiane. Parts of the Roman aqueduct are still visible and the tombs that lie below the city were recently named a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Walking through a small square, I spotted the bohemian-like wrap around pants I had been eyeing with envy at the concert the night before hanging in the doorway to a shop. I decided to splurge on a little shopping spree. New clothes are always a delight for a woman, but new clothes when you’ve been wearing the same four outfits for two months are manna from heaven. An hour later I had my new little bohemian pants with a t-shirt to match, a halter top that matched the little brown skirt I bought in Bourgas, a new little sundress, and much needed sandals The special walking sandals I spent $100 on and a month searching for in New York rubbed blisters in my feet. In Bulgaria, when my feet were openly bleeding, I bought a pair of flip-flops for $4 at a street market. They had served me well but had worn through to the ground two countries ago. I happily left the flip-flops for future couchsurfers at Rudi’s and trashed an outfit that was just as worn out to make room for the new ones. Only $50 to feel like a new woman! Shopping of course brings on hunger so I settled in at a little café near Szechenyi Square for lunch. It was just going to be a decadent day.

I love the point and smile method of ordering. You never know what you are going to get. Sometimes it is good, sometimes bad, sometimes just unexpected, but always a surprise. Trendo was the name of the restaurant according to the chalk-drawn marquis out front advertising one of those fixed-course meals. Settling into the umbrella covered table on the corner, I pulled out my tourist brochures to learn a bit about the town. A tall, heavy-set, teddy bear looking guy got up from another table where he was talking to a friend and came to take my order. We began the non-verbal communication of smiles and nods that gets you through ordering in a foreign country. He could speak little English but looked at me with kind, curious eyes that made me feel very welcome.

When I pointed at the marquis, he began trying, unsuccessfully, to explain what the foods were. I told him it was okay, it didn’t matter, just as he was saying something about cherry soup. Of course he had made a mistake in his English. There was no such thing as cherry soup, right? Wrong. There is and it is amazingly good. He set the bowl down proudly below me. A dollop of whip cream floated above a light pink cool concoction of tart cherries and exotic spices, cardamom perhaps, and I don’t know what else. I slurped every last drop watching the tourists eating at the McDonalds across the walkway wondering if they had any idea what they were missing. After soup, came a light salad and a paprika-laced piece of chicken. For dessert arrived a to-die-for sweet cheese stuffed crepe. All this for about $5. I would barely set my fork down before my Hungarian friend would jump up and whisk the plate off, bringing whatever was next. It was one of the best meals on my travels (though I admittedly don’t splurge often on restaurant meals). I learned his name was Pete and he owned this restaurant, apparently a franchise with locations in Kecskemet and Debrecen. I gave him my card, thanked him for the great service, and told him I’d mention the place on my website, which I’ve now done. I don’t know if I’ll make it back to Pecs, but if I do, I’ll definitely make it back to Trendo for more cherry soup!!

Content from shopping and eating, it was time for more serious touristing. I made my way up to Calvary Hill, with its great tombs and lovely view of the town below ad hills beyond. Winding my way down through the more deserted side streets, I circled back around and came in on the back side of the mosque that crowns this little town. During the Ottoman rule in the 16^th century, the Gázi Kászim Mosque was built. It sits high and proud above Szechenyi square, the main square of the old town. Interestingly, the Mosque was converted to a Catholic church where Turkish design and Christian icons blend seamlessly one into the other. I lit a candle and said my prayers to whichever god was still there listening.

A long cobble-stoned street on the way from the mosque to St. Peter’s Cathedral led me past the several stands adorned with padlocks. Yes, padlocks. Some decades ago, sweethearts began to affix padlocks to a wrought-iron fence in the narrow street as a symbol of their commitment to one another. The custom caught on and after a while the fence was completely covered and no more padlocks could be added. Despite efforts, town officials could not stop couples, both locals and tourists, from attaching them to fences and statues throughout the town centre. They finally gave in to the tradition and created small stands along the street expressly for the locks. Thousands of locks in all shapes and sizes with names etched into them or even engraved fill the stands, intertwining like a roughly wound ball of thick yarn. Some are rusted with time, others shiny and new, all proclaiming the love of two people who have walked this cobble-stone street.

At the end the street opens up into Dom square. The basilica on Dom Square is one of the most valuable medieval structures in Hungary. The crypt with five naves is from the 11th century. The statues and the frescos painted by noted Hungarian masters that are breathtakingly beautiful with their gold gilded edges to compliment the gilded designs throughout the church. The twelve apostles stand watching out over the land from the roof-line above. White marble carved statues several feet high, they reminded me of the Roman statutes that always adorned amphitheatres. I’d never seen a cathedral lined with statutes like that, like guardsman standing in wait. As it turned out they would be the culprits of trouble rather than protectorates.…. With full sacks and tired feet, I made my way back to Rudi’s to write for awhile as the day settled into evening.

The evening started out tamely enough. Jakob, Sara, Rudi, and I headed to the concert, a Hungarian rock group this time. They were not nearly as entrancing, for me at least, as the gypsy singer the night before but the young folk were hooting and hollering and even head banging and whatever you call that jumping-(dance) in the center near the stage. After the concert, we met up with several of Rudi’s friends on the lawn beside one of the town monuments outside the festival area. There were fifteen or so of us gathered in little groups chatting; German, Hungarian, and English words dancing in the air. We drank Hungarian beer beneath the star-filled sky passing around a hookah with raspberry flavored tobacco.

I never pass up a cultural experience, so when somebody asked if I would like to try Palinka, a fruit-flavored Hungarian liquor, I of course accepted. Two of the guys returned carrying the little plastic cups half-filled with the clear liquor. The girls all declined, so I stood with the men in a circle, meeting each one in the eye as we tapped cups and declared kedves egeszsegere, ‘to your health’ in Hungarian. The liquor was smooth and sweet, strong but much more pleasant than a shot of Jack or Jim Beam to the back of the throat. One shot was shortly followed by another and another and…

Earlier in the night, Rudi had told me a story of the time he got drunk with his friends and “the apostles.” The town was doing repair work on the cathedral, he told me, and he and his friends decided in their drunkenness to climb the scaffolding and hang out with the statues of the apostles on the roof of the church. I could see them as he recounted the story – sitting on the edge of the building, legs hanging over the side, raising a beer in toast to the statues rising above them.

Somewhere between palinka shots I began teasing Rudi that I wanted to go drink with the apostles. “Oh no, we can’t, there is no scaffolding, no way to get up there.” Still I teased, “Oh come on, let’s go drink with the apostles!” Somewhere between more palinka shots Rudi responded, “Well, we can’t drink with the apostles but we could go climb the horse….” The equestrian statue of Janos Hunyadi stands tall and proud on the edge of the main square. The base of the statue is well over twelve feet high and the horse and rider are that tall again and then some. When Rudi was in his twenties, climbing the horse secured him a photo on the front page of the newspaper and a minor arrest record. This became the drunken joke of the night – that we would go climb the horse. Well, after a couple bars, more beer, and more palinka shots, climbing the horse became an idea rather than a joke.

There were only five of us left standing as we made our way from the last bar toward the square. I looked up at the horse towering above me. “Rudi, there is no way I can climb that!” “Oh no, it is easy, I’ll show you!” He responded. He got the other two guys to lift him as he reached for the edge of the base to pull himself. You can guess what happened next. The old Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme went through my palinka-dazed mind as Rudi came tumbling down. He was fine though, we thought. His hand was bleeding but seemed okay, just cut. Or maybe we were just too drunk to perform an accurate medical diagnosis.

The next day we learned differently. Rudi’s wrist was broken and needed an operation. I felt so badly. I actually put my host in the hospital! Rudi would have none of my apologies though. “It is better to have funny moments than to just go to bed early every night!” He declared with his endearing smile. Even hospitals and broken wrists couldn’t deter his easy way and kind manner. “Watch out for the wild horses,” I warned him as I kissed him on the forehead goodbye.

Hot, Hot, Hot Hungary - And I'm Not Talking About The Paprika!

Friday, July 20, 2007

It is funny how some cities you just click with and others you just don’t. I tried to like Szeged. I really did. Despite the blistering heat, I ventured forth, determined to take in something of the city. The day I arrived, was the hottest day in recorded Hungarian history – 107 degrees. Okay, so it gets hotter than that in Texas, but Texas has air-conditioning. Hungary does not.

I was never particularly fond of the heat. My parents joke to this day about the time I was seven when I looked at my grandmother with abject horror and whimpered, “Oh, Wa-wa, I am about to sweat.” Texas probably wasn’t the best place for someone to grow up who despised the heat so much. My parents took me once to Mexico (our only trip to another country except the islands) where, much to their disdain, I spent the entire time in the air-conditioned hotel reading my books. Funny to think a world-traveler, devoted to the discovery of new lands, spent her first trip out of the country in air-conditioning reading! The love of words hasn’t changed, but at least my tolerance for heat has, if not my distaste for it.

Szeged was lovely, not in the endearing sense of the word, but in the sense that there is really nothing wrong with some place but really nothing particularly notable about it either. It reminded me a bit of Stepford, lovely and well-kept on the outside but with an empty soul. Perhaps it was the fact that the better part of the 50,000 students who make up one-fourth of the town’s population were gone for the summer. Or perhaps the heat just melted away my ability to appreciate anything.

The hot, heavy Hungarian wind had turned the city into a ghost town. Nary a car much less a person could be found on the streets. Széchenyi Square, one of the largest landscaped squares in Europe, was deserted. The Serbian Orthodox Church, City Hall, Reök Palace, and numerous other architecture delights were lovely but stark in the still air of the empty town. The pedestrian walkway was picture perfect, bordered with freshly painted buildings, dotted with art sculptures reminding me much of Plovdiv, but devoid of shoppers and tourists. There was no one wandering the square before the Dom, which is equivalent in size to St Mark’s in Venice. One brave soul sat in a sea of empty tables watching the Tour de France which was being broadcast on a giant screen before an empty square. Even the swimming hole at the edge of the river Tisca that runs along side the center city was empty. It seemed it was too hot to even go swimming, or maybe the water was actually boiling.

The highlight of Szeged was shopping with my host Daniel at Tesco. Really. And not just because of the air-conditioning, though I did linger a long time on the frozen foods aisle. Hungary actually has the nicest grocery stores I’ve seen this side of the Atlantic. Large, clean, bright and shiny shopping meccas to rival even the best of Targets married to the best Harris Teeter. Daniel patiently computed money conversions and answered my questions about traditional Hungarian foods, laughing at my shock that one of their favorite snacks is a side of lard. Truly, you can buy a big ol’ hunk’o’fat at the butcher shop and gnaw away on it like a dog with his bone. Daniel was quiet and kind, with dark eyes and long thick dark hair any girl would be envious of. It seemed long hair was still a fashion in Hungary. I hadn’t seen so many long-haired men since the Ozzy Osborne concert I saw 25 years ago (boy doesn’t that date me?!).

I was Daniel’s first couchsurfing experience, he had not yet either hosted or surfed, but he was a natural. He met me at the station, bus ticket in hand (never get on a bus in Hungary without a ticket, unlike Belgrade and other places, the conductors are always there checking). He offered me little baby pears for a snack, and wonderful crepes for breakfast Saturday morning, and even home baked muffins for the bus ride to Pecs. He took me out with his flatmates for beer and the famous Hungarian Unicom liquor, which tastes like a bitter natural herb cough medicine. They say it is similar to Jagermeister – Jager is as sweet as Dr. Pepper compared to Unicom. The streets deserted during my daytime stroll were at least somewhat populated Saturday night, but there was still a heavy stillness everywhere, like no one could really get up and move. I signed my name on the wall with the markers provided by the Blues Bar, which played American techno music all night, and we called it an early night.

The wind had thankfully blown away some of the heat during the night but it was too late to save Szeged. Putting on clothes that were hot to the touch and earphones that burned your ears just left little chance for this town to find its way into my good graces. If I every go back, it will be in winter!!

Belgrade - Sun, Serbs, and The Stones!

Friday, July 20, 2007

The hot Hungarian wind blows through the little train station in Kiskunhalas as I wait for the train that will take me to Szeged. The suffocating heat as I move eastward has intensified the yearning in my heart I masked with work the days in Belgrade. A yearning to hear words carried on the wind that I will not hear, and so I keep moving, as we must through life.

Belgrade was a great city. Though I spent most of my days sitting at the internet café on Slavija Square immersed in writing and research and earning the dollars that will carry me to Russia in September, I had, through the graces of the engaging Serbian people, the chance to feel some sense of this ‘beginning of the Balkans’ and to learn something of its suffering and triumph. Belgrade is a city that moves forward; through war, through change, through the highs and lows that this life bring to us as individuals and collectively, and so I follow, best I can, its example.

Rade was my first Serbian encounter. An active CS member and an engaging conversationalist, he was kind enough in hours between his hectic work and travel and family schedule to rescue me from Lexis for a drink and a stroll through town. The Serbians have a great passion for their country, their heritage, and Rade was no exception. His very voice carried a pulse to it, like teenagers in line at a rollercoaster - vibrant, excited, full of life and its experience, of the thrill that awaits. In fact that is in a way the energy throughout the city – this amusement park excitement blended with that day-off-work meandering tranquility. Rade used the word ‘very’ frequently, as did most Serbians, as if everything in its normal state is not enough, good things are v-e-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-y good, with the ‘r’ rolled even more than normal for emphasis. Rade would draw the ‘r’ out a very long time then curve the y up at the end, like a beautiful magician’s helper leading the audience’s eyes to their target with a stretch of her arm and flourish of her wrist at the end.

You could see in his eyes, hear in his voice how much he loved his family, loved his people, loved his country and heritage. He talked freely, albeit painfully at times, obliging my quizzical nature about his people, his homeland, the war, and the years since as the country moves forward to economic and psychological recovery. He cast his eyes to the floor when he spoke of communism and what it tried to drive from their culture – a sense of family and god; though financial times were, for many, better under the communist regime. When he spoke of the NATO bombings, his face clouded, not with the anger of betrayal, but with its sorrow. “We were always on America’s side. Always,” he said to me pointedly. “In the first World War, in the second, always.” He spoke honestly, forthrightly, with never a negative thing to say about the other countries and cultures involved in the war that ravaged this part of the world less than a decade ago. “It takes two to fight,” he said simply. Doesn’t it though….

I wish I had more time to get to know this tall, handsome, devoted father of two young children, and proud entrepreneur, but time and demands of work and home, would not allow our paths to cross again this trip. Perhaps when I return to Serbia, as I will one day.

I returned from our evening stroll along the Knez Mihaylova, to my self-imposed isolation for four more days, though when the evening sun came through the windows of the internet café, making work impossible, I would pack up my computer and walk the streets until nightfall. One such evening walk carried me to Ucse Park where to my surprise and delight there were still tickets available for the Rolling Stones concert. About $30 secured me a spot amongst the 80,000 people who had turned out for the first Stones concert in Serbia. Let me just say the Stones rock! Puns intended.

I would be struck again and again, at the concert and other times, by the paradoxical nature of these people – the calm pulse of excitement, the chaoticness of a people who do not cue, against the calmness of a people who also do not push (except when they move past you at the riverside discos). The concert was packed with people who, unlike other standing concerts I have been to, did not pack together. Rather there were pockets of people gathered throughout the massive green space; none of whom had that concert-space-defense system that Americans invoke that will bring them to blows before they allow someone to move past them. Several times I made my way through different sections of the crowd before finally settling into a spot on the side where I could see both the incomprehensively massive screen and light show (a skyscraper structure in its own right I would venture to guess) and a “Borrowers” sized Mick Jagger running tirelessly across the immense stage.

The man must have found a way to bottle the energy of a three year old. I’ve never seen anyone run, dance, move and grind so much in a two hour period. Thousands of fans would screech with pleasure as he sprinted down the catwalk that ran from the stage into the center of the teeming crowd. At one point, the entire stage moved snail-like along the catwalk, by some mechanism I could not deduce from my removed location, until it reached the center of the audience where the concert continued for several songs sans lights amidst of a sea of people. Belgrad-ians cheered and hollered singing along in English and laughing delightedly at the jokes Jagger was making in Serbian – which by the way he spoke for a better part of the concert.

The Brown Sugar encore brought the concert to a close followed by a small fireworks display. Many of us remained, hoping for one last song, including the group of several young girls and one guy who were next to me. The guy had tried in vain several times to engage one his friends in a dance, but they had shooed him off. Taken, I guess, with the excitement of the night, he turned to me as the fireworks were falling from the sky above and held his hands out in a wordless request to dance with him. I took his hands and he spun me. He was an excellent dancer, one of the best I’ve ever had, leading me flawlessly together and apart, spinning me, stopping me, circling and centering me atop the plastic beer mugs and discarded bottles as excited fans made their way around us. Some actually stopped to watch, creating a small circle of our own little fan group. When the song ended he dipped me then took my hand and kissed it, thanking me for the dance before returning to his friends who I’m sure teased him mercilessly later. It was an odd, enlivening, connected ending moment to a solitary yet exhilarating evening.

Another evening carried me to the Belgrade Fortress. I believe this ranks as one of the most lovely places I’ve seen on my journeys. Set high above the meeting point of the Sava and Danube rivers, you can hear the winds of time rustling through the grass and trees, whispering of days past, of wars and loves fought and lost. The sun was setting as I strolled the labyrinth of layered passageways, criss-crossing above and below in a design clearly intended to confuse invading forces. Each corner brought a new surprise – a church, a turret, a view or statue or charming guardpost, now demure in the evening light despite the bloody history for which they were built.

I had actually stumbled on to the fortress by accident, cresting the stairs to see a sight that looked unexpectedly familiar. It took me a moment to figure out what it was about the tree lined path and the lighted displays that had struck such a resonant cord of memory. Then it registered – it was the Earth From Above photo exhibition. The one I had seen in Madrid, my first stop in this traveling life, my first couchsurf in fact. I remembered writing of the exhibition then, encouraging people to check out the book at least if the exhibition would not come to their town. The photos are truly incredible; intense, beautiful, and thought provoking. This uniquely gifted photographer and activist encourages us to see both the beauty of our world and the destruction we are wreaking upon it in an effort to engage us in these conversations and actions toward sustainable development.

As I walked toward the beginning of the exhibition, I felt as if I was greeting an old familiar friend, and, as we have in those moments, had the chance to see me as I am now in contrast to the me who stood before these photos over a year of traveling ago. The road has calmed me I think. Settled me to the changing winds of time – not in the sense of standing against them or numbing to or ignoring them, but by teaching me how to ride them, to follow the crest of the wave as fully, in its height as it rises as in its crash upon the shore. More and more I find the road brings me to a sense peace with who I am, and, perhaps more importantly, who I am not.

These thoughts washed across my mind as the sun set beyond New Belgrade in the distance, painting the sky with breathtaking hues of purple and blue. Lovers strolled hand in hand, others leaned against each other upon the hill watching the sunset, a young couple stood in the corner of a rampart, intensely making out, hands exploring, oblivious to the world passing by. There was such a calm tranquility in the air. Strange for a place so filled with people. I would come back again later in the sweltering summer heat to find that same tranquility. It was as if the fortress casts its pensive, protective, quiet, reflective spirit upon everyone who passes through its walls.

The best part of Belgrade was when I finally left Hotel Slavija and my work behind and headed to the home of my new hosts Sanja and her brother Branco. Sanja was a delight, intelligent and kind with lovely bright eyes and long hair that accented her long body. I am convinced Serbia has the tallest people in the world. I’ve never felt so short in my life as I did standing on the bus or at the concert or aside my hosts and their friends. Branco was even taller, with dark hair, an incredible knowledge of history, and more energy than his body ever knew what to do with. He would move his body or his hands or nod his head all the time, as if moving to some techno beat the rest of the world could not hear. He never tired of my curious questions about the wars, the people, the politics of today. I think I learned more about history those two days with him then I did in a year course in high school.

Despite her article deadlines (Sanja is a journalist), the two of them made special time for me, taking me out one blisteringly hot summer day to Ada Ciganliya, with its miles of rock-lain beaches aside dance bars and cafes, and the next night to the riverside bars that line the Sava, where anyone can dance the night away to any music style their heart could desire. They called friends to come over and chat and contribute their answer to my oft-repeated question – What is a Serb? I wanted to understand these people, this life, this place in history, and in the present. Unfortunately, the time was too short to barely begin. The time will come though as I will return one day to this land to experience more of its delightful people and calm, vibrant presence.

What's In A Name?

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Friday, July 13, 2007

It is an odd thing. You hear these strange names of foreign lands where wars are being fought. You see news clips and imagine a world unlike your own, people unlike those you know, if you bother to think much about it at all. One day you hear the war has ended and occasionally there is a news story about how the countries involved are doing, how they are recovering, what governments are being put in place. You don’t pay much mind. It is a different world.

Then you find yourself traveling near these countries, these odd names you remember hearing once upon a newscast. You look at your guide book, a curiosity brought about by proximity, but you see only a vague outline of these lands. Eastern Europe books would include all of the Balkan Peninsula, except perhaps Greece, wouldn’t you think? But no, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania appear to be a no man’s land – unmapped regions, blank patches of white showing in contrast to the detailed maps of the countries surrounding them. Certainly you wouldn’t venture into an unmapped region? Or would you?

The familiar calls the vacationer. The unfamiliar calls the traveler. So you start asking around. What are these places? Belgrade? Sarajevo? These names only familiar from newscasts a decade ago. “Oh no, a woman shouldn’t travel there alone,” you hear. “It is still dangerous,” they say. “There is no infrastructure; travel by public transport is nearly impossible.” But you talk to travelers, those on the road, and you get a different story. “Oh definitely go. Belgrade is great, a lot of fun. Sarajevo is beautiful.” And so you go.

And then you find yourself walking down Kralia Milana, one of the major streets that leads from Slavija Square toward the center of town. Cars hurry past, with the buses and the trolley trams. Couples walk hand in hand. Women are walking their dogs. Men jog by wearing sweat pants. Puppies for adoption play on the grass with potential new owners. There is a Dolce and Gabbana marquis on the side of the building, a pizzeria every other block, McDonalds. The language is different, even the letters are different, but the life is the same. People. People getting on with the business of living. Are these the same people who did the atrocities Serbians were accused of during the war? If so, it doesn’t show in their eyes. Or do you put war atrocities behind you like you put away yesterday’s dirty dishes, like last week’s lost love, like the shock of the World Trade Center attack. Man is amazing in his capacity to heal and move forward. That is one of our greatest strengths, though sometimes, from the outside, it can look callous.

It strikes me more and more as I travel. We are all the same – searching for love, reaching for happiness, striving, trying to survive, find peace in our souls, be true to our gods, raise our children, care for our parents, hope for tomorrow. Where do the wars come from? Why do they come? I don’t understand. Don’t understand how mankind can find so much reason for separation when we share so much in common.

Belgrade is a magnificent city. The ravages of war still show in places – skeletons of bombed government buildings stand aside busy thoroughways. Dilapidated buildings reflecting a bare memory of their glory straddle brightly renovated jewels of architecture. The side streets and sidewalks are still in a state of disrepair, evidence of a budget not yet thriving. Fifty euro is worth 4,000 dinar and change is worthless in an economy still struggling for stability. Yet layered above these whispers of a war not so long ago is a vibrant, bustling energy; a strange energy I have not felt before in my travels. Is it the reborn hope of a city rising from the proverbial ashes, again? As it has time and time before?

High above the city, standing watch over the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers below, stands the Belgrade Fortress. In these now peaceful, lovely rolling ridges of green, one can see the remains of fortifications that were razed to the ground and rebuilt over and over – by Romans, Byzantines, Hungarians, Serbs, Turks, Austrians. It is a difficult concept for an American. The wars fought on our lands are romanticized concepts of presumably principle-driven battles of long ago, rather than a redundant reality of our entire cultural existence fighting to maintain its own ground.

I sit in the waiter-serviced internet café, unworried by the cost at about a dollar an hour for internet, sipping an almost undrinkable Turkish coffee while Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” plays on the speakers above. What exactly did the people who warned me not to come think I had to fear? No the city is not shiny and new. I splurged on the hotel with internet access, needing a little solitude and time to catch up on my writing. It is a five star hotel for only $50 a night with all the accoutrements - a casino, internet, salon, restaurants, convention center - and yet the walls are crumbling in the hallways, the carpets stained, and the tiles around the toilet in my room have fallen out, leaving a gaping hole revealing the crumbled plaster of the wall. There is nary a single cheap art print and the only light sources are weak spots of light hung in the wall. I’ve seen Motel 6’s in a better state of repair, reminding me again, as I am constantly, how spoiled we are in America with our bright, shiny, clean newness everywhere - in our buildings… and in our history. Still the people are friendly, the room comfortable, and the internet café is open twenty-four hours a day.

Prices are unbelievably cheap and here they do not seem to see tourists as walking wallets to try to take advantage of. It was disappointing to me how often this happened in Bulgaria and Romania. Perhaps tourism is still too new here. You see backpackers about the city, but it does not have the tourist bustle of most historically laden metropolitan cities. It is a living city. The museums and parks and monuments are blissfully uncrowded, lending them some sort of real-ness that the great steps of Sacré-Coeur or the lawns about the Coliseum cannot recall. There is an energy much like New York, lusty, vibrant, excited but without the frenetic pace that hardens the Big Apple. Even along the Knez Mihailova, the pedestrian walkway adorned with its beautiful neo-renaissance and art nouveau architecture and bustling sidewalk cafes, there is a calmness, a peacefulness in the midst of the pulse.

I have still seen little of the city, buried in the work that will pay for Russia in September and writing. Still I have fallen in love with the place that belongs to that name I heard once upon a newscast. I dare say over the next few years this city will follow in the footsteps of Prague and Budapest, calling people from all over to wonder at this other world along the Danube, different, yet so much like our own.

The Pendulum Swings

Sunday, July 15, 2007

I took a break from my internet café marathon for an evening walk at sunset. Sidewalk cafes line the Kralia Milana in Belgrade with their wood tables, flower boxes, and bright colored umbrellas. Waiters in white shirts and black pants rush from inside the restaurants behind to tend the customers who chat lively as the colors of the sunset reflect in the evening air. Irish pubs, Italian restaurants, French bistros, and restaurants offering more traditional Serbian fare blend one into the other, the table umbrellas changing from green to red to yellow, creating a brightly colored quilt if looked at from above. There, arm in arm with the others, sat a McDonalds. Yes a McDonalds. There were no waiters in black and white, but the tables, the bright colored umbrellas, the light easy chatter over dinner, even the flower boxes were the same. This struck me as particularly odd to see a McDonalds with flower boxes, strutting like a sidewalk café, though it took me a moment to understand why. In America, McDonalds has become a shiny plastic icon, plastic booths, plastic tables, plastic food. It is the last place I would think of going with my friends for a dinner and chat at sunset. Yet here it was an experience, an evening out.

Back at the internet café, I noticed for the first time the building that housed the McDonalds across from me at Slavija Square. It was a beautiful, free-standing, neo-renaissance structure. White fluted columns crested by ornate flourishes flanked the doors with intricately designed cornices and friezes and other decorative embellishments. Greek style pediments sit atop the entry way and each of the windows. Nestled into the ornamented triangle pediments, above every other window, stood a small tasteful golden arch, a proud moniker. The building in America would have housed a bank, here, in a particularly high commercial rent district, it held instead a McDonalds.

My mind flashed back to the last year of traveling and the several photos I have taken of McDonalds situated in stunning or quaint locations, always on pedestrian walkways or otherwise vibrant areas of town. I took the pictures out of some sense of oddity, this contradiction to me of McDonalds and something beautiful or classy or quaint. I never realizing it was a contradiction to me because I am an American. We equate McDonalds with blue-class, Walmart shopping workers, or families with small children screeching for happy meals. To the Europe though, McDonalds is a status symbol; the bright yellow arches a symbol of opportunity and success as it was once in our country.

After the second World War, after the men who survived returned home and the shock of it all began to wear off, people were left were to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on. And move on they did, getting married, having sex, finding jobs, having sex, mowing their lawns, having lots of babies from all that sex, and striving desperately to create a “Father Knows Best” world that left the atrocities of war far behind them on shores of a distant land. They were searching for something, something that reflected the ease of life, the joy of family, the prosperity of the victors. “Fast Food” became a fad of the day. Little shacks outside the cities and towns boasted fun, family food, prepared by others, that a family in their shiny new post-war car could “drive thru” to get. Picnic tables were scattered around back where families and neighbors could gather and eat as the sun disappeared from the sky. These restaurants were varied and numerous but one began to stand out – McDonalds.

It became, in time, a symbol of America, of this time, of recovery after the war, of life going on, of the victors. Golden yellow arches that rose high in the air looking toward a prosperous future, one where we could afford little conveniences like fast food shared at picnic tables amongst family and friends while children played in brightly colored play parks.

And then something happened. Instead of a country that could afford convenience, we became a country that demanded convenience. And later a country that lived for convenience and then, sadly, a country that no longer knows how to survive without convenience. Life began to come packaged in boxes and cans, losing both quality and nutrition along the way. And with it, we lost much of our ability to enjoy the things that take time. I remember helping my grandmother strip string beans as a little girl. I remember wondering why she took so long to prepare something that she could just buy at the store. But there was a beauty to the work of food once, aside from the mere fact it actually tasted like food and not a can. There was beauty in the camaraderie of women or families who worked together to strip the peas or thrash the pecan trees. There was pride in the preparation of something from scratch that simply can’t be found in carrying a cardboard carton to the microwave. I was struck again and again in Italy by the pride and preparation that went into making food. I think in some haunting way there is a link between their passion for life and appreciation that it is in the preparation of things that they find their quality their value.

In America, convenience became the prize, more important than quality, more important than health. Convenience and constancy. We wanted to know what we were getting and we wanted it now. Nothing else mattered. We now see the price of that prize – the most overweight country in the world with the highest rate of heart disease, cancer, and stress.

Time changes and symbols move on. In America, McDonalds became relegated to gas station corners and fast food rows and shopping malls, the picnic tables and play areas have slowly disappeared. The convenience, once a sign of the prosperity of the victors has become a symbol of the franticness of a society of plenty filled with scarcity. Run to McDonalds. Its cheap. Its quick. That’s important because in America there is never enough money, and never, ever enough time.

In Europe, though, especially the new parts of Europe breaking into the mainstream, McDonalds is still the icon of dream, a dream of a life of ease, of opportunity, of convenience, of picnic tables in the sunset. Perhaps they do not see, as I do, what we have paid for that life of convenience and ease - a lightness in life, a sense of family, a loss of institution, an emptiness in our souls.

It is interesting, in this vein of thought, to note that we have now created a new icon. A siren cast in green. In Starbucks I see, or at least saw in its conception, an effort to reach back to a slower time. Starbucks with its warm comfy chairs and muted tones of olive and orange, the colors of Tuscany, offering us a place to sit and linger, to meet with friends or on blind dates or just sit and commune with our books or our computers. Of course this new icon still reflects the prosperity of the victors, in price certainly. It still offers the convenience and constancy we demand, but I have always loved Starbucks for its effort to flesh out a bit the feeling of community, the spirit we have lost through the years. Perhaps we are moving backward on the pendulum. Perhaps we are finding again substance, in community, in conversation, in spirit carries as much value as convenience. Perhaps we are beginning to see this rampant sense of scarcity, that there isn’t enough time, never enough money, is a foolish misperception for those living in the land of opportunity.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore Toto

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

This train was a trip! (Pun intended.) It is five in the morning when I board my third train at the Romanian border town of Timisoara on the way to Belgrade, Serbia. Pulling back the curtain to my cabin, I am delighted to see there is only one backpack inside and no person attached to it. It seems a bit peculiar someone would just leave their backpack, but I don’t think too much of it. I open the curtains and settle into the prime seat, the one next to the window, where you can watch the countryside as it comes rather than as it disappears, and say a quick prayer that it will just be me and the partner of the unattended backpack for the ride to Belgrade.

Suddenly, a wiry man bursts into the compartment dressed in a t-shirt and warm up pants with a cover up jacket. He reaches past me without a word, whips the curtains closed, and jumps up on to the seats, placing a foot on each bench for balance, and proceeds to unscrew the vent shaft above. I would like to think he is the electrician fixing the light, but there is no light overhead. A moment later he has wriggled his body half way into the shaft and is tossing down small rectangular shaped somethings wrapped in black plastic trash bags. Terrific… Of all the seats on this train, I get the one where they are smuggling illegal goods across the border. I don’t want to know what the goods are. I politely turn around and face the corner, waiting until his rummaging stops.

A minute later an older, decently dressed, and seemingly educated man starts barking at my wire terrier friend from the aisle. WT (let’s call him) is rushing frantically now and I am suddenly concerned that maybe it is better I not see everyone involved in this transaction. I pray for the safety of my backpack, strap my purse around my shoulder, bow my head, and step past the man in the aisle. I feel him glaring at me. I pray again.

The older man is exasperated. He hands a large plastic tarp-like bag to WT, barking more unintelligible commands. I hear scurrying in the compartment and wonder if my backpack will be raided as well. I think for a moment if I should enter and retrieve my pack but decide this is probably not a good idea. Just then the old man steps out, a full bag in his arms, and genteelly saunters down the aisle and off the train.

I take my seat and open the curtains. The wire-terrier bounds off to the next compartment and I hear rummaging again. I look at the dismantled vent shaft above me and wonder if I should change cars. Could I get arrested for turning my back to a cross-border smuggling operation? I begin to wonder if I shouldn’t have stayed on the train to Budapest. Being interrogated in Serbia just doesn’t seem like that much fun to me. At least whatever it was is gone, I think to myself.

As I’m pondering what they were smuggling across Romania, my yapper friend pops back in, his arms filled with more of the black plastic wrap containers. He closes the curtains again and proceeds to climb back into the shaft. This time I’m not moving. He finishes the last screw and steps off the bench, brushing his dusty footprints off the seat, just as the passport control opens the curtain to ask for my passport – they greet each other like old friends. I would love to ask exactly what is going on, but it is doubtful he speaks English and probably better I don’t know. So much for my future as a war correspondent.

Passport control barely glances at my passport – I guess you are on the inside track if you’re in the smuggler’s compartment. The officer leaves. Another guy comes to the doorway and slaps my yapper friend on the back. WT says something in response then pulls out a two-liter bottle filled with a thick brown substance which he pours into two plastic cups. Handing one to his friend, they toast what appears to be a success toast. Hmmm, a nip of liquor would actually be quite nice right now. I guess he saw the longing in my eye for he turns to me, gesturing with the bottle, “Kafa?” I nod yes. He smiles and pours me a cup, hands it to me, opens the drapes, and disappears with his backpack out into the aisle. Now we are bonded.

I sit back in my seat, sipping the thickest, strongest coffee I have ever tasted, watching the sunflowers turn their heads to the morning sun as the concoction begins to eat through my stomach lining.

I barely breathe the hour and a half we are at the border. My heart stood still in my chest as the investigator lifted the benches in my car then glanced at the vent above. He searches the outlines, checking the placement of screws I presume, before leaving the cabin. I try not to exhale audibly as relief swept through me. Thank God WT had picked up the screw he had dropped on the floor and climbed back up to replace it. Whew… The train was moving on. I breathe freely again - for a few minutes anyway. Then WT comes back, opens the vent, and begins taking stuff out again! Jesus Christ! I step out in the aisle to let him work.

Standing there I see train security coming down the aisle as WT is tossing stuff down from the vent to the floor. Shit! What should I do? I feel a complicity with my friend, the coffee-sharing wire-terrier, a fear of ‘the goods’ being discovered in MY cabin, a desire to be a good citizen, and a desire to be invisible, all at the same time. Indecision grips me and I stand there silently, heart pounding, as the officer walks the corridor, checking each compartment. I’m sure the look on my face was classic when he opened the curtain to my cabin, and said, I presume, “Hey! How’s it going?” to WT while he is standing on the benches with his hands in the vent shaft! Train security was in on it! For the next twenty minutes, WT and the other smuggler are running up and down the aisles in a frenzy taking stuff down and filling up bags, while everyone, security included, walks around like nothing is happening. It was absolutely bizarre.

When we pulled into the last station before Belgrade, I laughed literally out loud. Looking out on the platform I saw dozens of people walking away from the train with these tarp like plastic collapsible bags – all filled to the brim just like WT’s. The entire train must have been smuggling something! At the beginning of the ride in the dark of the night in the littered border town, my mind was racing with thoughts of what they might be smuggling. Cocaine? Weapons? False papers? I actually had a nanosecond fear at the beginning that I was going to have my throat sliced for “knowing too much” – a dispensable American tourist with bad timing and bad luck caught in the web of a multi-million dollar drug smuggle. In the light of day, as hundreds of bags were carried across the tracks, I realized they were probably smuggling Charmin tissue and bed linens! Guess I won’t get my throat cut for toilet tissue….

Reflections on Romania

Monday, July 9, 2007

I boarded the early train from Varna, Bulgaria to Romania, surprised that the only commonality in the landscape beyond of these two countries was field after field of sunflowers twining their heads to the morning sun. I have always loved sunflowers. They seem to hold some archetypal power for me and so I loved this train ride through their yellow and green glory. After the connection in Ruse, and the long delay at the border, it was quickly clear we had entered another country. I guess I thought as neighbors upon the same peninsula, these two countries would share much in common. As it is, the only things seem to be fields of sunflowers, the glorious feta cheese of this entire part of the world, and their mafia controlled governments. Both countries are currently under warning by the EU to clean up the corruption in their political systems. Everything else it seemed was different – the houses, the architecture, the landscape, the people.

Where Bulgarians seemed to have no real defining characteristics, the Romanians appeared, at least to the naked uninformed eye, to share a common heritage, especially the men with their long oval faces and close set eyes. A little research confirmed my initial observation. It seems ethnic Romanians constitute about 89% of the population and are descended from the inhabitants of Dacia, an ancient land approximately comprising the regions of Transylvania and Walachia today. The gypsies are easy to recognize with their dark skin and uniquely defined faces. Their society remains to this day a well-guarded and closed caste society and so there has been little genetic alteration. I was surprised to learn though that the Gypsy, or Roma, population that has become infamous across Europe comprises less than two percent of Romania’s population. Hungarians make up the largest ethnic minority, comprising over seven percent of the population, and residing predominately in Transylvania. A mass exodus of those with German heritage in the 1980’s has reduced the German population to less than 1%, though you wouldn’t know it walking through some of the towns like Sibiu. Unfortunately, it does show in the many Saxon villages that have been completely abandoned. Without funds or societal interest in maintaining the heritage, some will inevitably disintegrate – a sad loss.

What struck me most as the train raced into the Carpathian Mountains was the change in architecture. Without having looked yet at the historical struggles that shaped this country, it was clear their history was different from Bulgaria. Single family homes, not so different from American suburbia neighborhoods, dotted the landscape. There were far fewer of the communist concrete constructs that filled Bulgarian cities, clustering people into areas and leaving large expanses of undeveloped land between. It was rare for there not to be some town or house in sight of the passing train. In the mountain towns, lovely chalets sat perched on the side of hills bathed in the beauty of the Carpathian mountain range. It reminded me much of Colorado with jagged young peaks and quaint little mountain towns nestled among them like birds roosting in the forest trees.

The lower villages contrasted the mountain towns with their tent towns and tin house rows. It was strange, and a bit unnerving, to see such poverty living aside such relative luxury. It seems in Romania there is a large divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ with not much of a middle class separating the two. Perhaps it is for this that the people seem a bit more guarded than the Bulgarians. They were not rude, just it seemed a bit suspecting, as if waiting to see whether you were worth opening to or not, though I imagine once you are on the other side they are a warm and generous sort.

Almost fifty percent of the population is still rural, a high percentage for Europe. The train ride from Sibiu to Sighisoara passed through several small rural towns. They seemed like such simple folk. I’m not sure the little boy next to me on the train had ever seen a computer up close. He was awestruck as he watched the words pour onto the screen from my fingertips. I asked him his name, Sebi, and showed him how he could make it appear on the screen. He smiled a big bright smile. I pulled my camera out and took a picture then plugged the card into the computer so he could see the picture. His eyes opened wide like as if I had just done some magic trick. He was on the train with his sister and mother who just beamed at me for taking an interest in him. I would have given anything to speak their language, to go home with them and sit at their table and ask what their lives were like.

I had decided not to do Bucharest. I just wasn’t in the mood for a big city, particularly one that is by its own admission is attractive for its grittiness more than anything else and instead headed to Brasov then Sibiu and finally Sighisoara. Writing this now in Belgrade, I’m not sure I can really say I experienced “Romania.” After ten days and much research I’m still not sure I can say what exactly would be “Romania” aside from a land mass agreed upon by a treaty. Brasov, Sibiu, Sinai, and Sighisoara are all in Transylvania – a region whose history was clearly dominated by the Hungarians and strongly influenced by the Germans. In history (and perhaps still today) there was a disdain for the “Romanian” people. The region was handed back and forth between Hungary and Romania I think four times before it was officially returned to Romania under the Treaty of Paris in 1947, though in spirit it seems more allied with its western neighbors in Hungary and Germany than its eastern political counterparts in Wallachia and Moldavia (which comprised the original modern state of Romania in 1859). I loved Transylvania with its quaint towns and beautiful landscape but I remain curious as to what the rest of Romania is like. I will have to return one day to find out more what binds Romania as a country and gain a greater glimpse into its people.

Beautiful Sighisoara

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Sighisora will always be for me the precious love story I was blessed to share within its walls. However, I would be remiss if I did not write something of the loveliness found within this town on its own merit. Despite the construction and current upheaval in the town, it is a shining jewel of a city, the ‘Pearl of Transylvania,’ calling tourists from Romania and beyond for good reason. It is one of seven fortified Saxon cities in Transylvania, two of which, Brasov and Sibiu, I have already written about. The villages were settled in the 12^th century in agreement with Hungary to guard the passes from Tatar and Ottoman raiders in exchange for favorable market rights. The Saxons constructed the seven fortified cities and then in the villages built fortified churches, large enough to shelter and protect all the members of the village in times of siege. The historical strategy has left for us a countryside rich with heritage and history and beautifully decorated with fortresses, churches, turrets, and lovely towns.

Sighisoara is the only remaining inhabited medieval citadel in Eastern Europe, one of the many reasons for its popular appeal. In the 15^th century the walls surrounding the city were fifteen meters high and flanked fourteen defense towers. Of these, nine are still standing to this day, each named for a particular guild – the Bootmakers’ Tower, Tailor’s Tower, Tanners’ Tower, Ironsmiths’ Tower, etc. The town had a rich history of German artisans and craftsmen, at one point boasting fifteen guilds and twenty-five handicraft branches. With trade contacts that ranged from the Netherlands to Persia, Sighisoara became one of the first Transylvania settlements to gain the status of a town in 1517 and legal autonomy.

The town is inextricably tied to Dracula folklore being the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure on whom Bram Stoker’s book was based. The town gave shelter and support to his father from 1431-1435 in his efforts to gain the Romanian throne. There is a division in Romania between those who want to exploit the Dracula legend and its connection with Transylvania to bring in tourists and those who prefer their country be recognized for its beauty and historical value rather than a legend of an immortal, nocturnal, blood-sucking monster. At one point there were talks and plans of a Dracula theme park though they were eventually, and thankfully, dropped. I believe Transylvania has more than enough redeeming qualities to offer tourists without resorting to luring them with vampire lore. At the same time I believe there could be a compromise between the two that is more realistic and healthier than an absolute opposition of Dracula tourism or a downward spiral into a land filled with tacky fang-tooth t-shirts and black capes hanging in every store.

While riding the buses and trains through Bulgaria and Romania, I read a wonderful book called The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  It is an incredibly well-written book, her first. If she has more in her like this, she will, I think, be a literary great for future generations. Her skill for metaphor and visual imagery is breathtaking. The book follows the path of an historian (actually three generations of historians) searching for the true burial place of Vlad the Impaler. She weaves within this search for historical truth a modern day vampire tale, though ever so subtly. The weight of the book explores the historical dynamics throughout the Balkan peninsula, carrying the reader through Budapest and Istanbul, across the mountains and monasteries of Bulgaria, and, of course, into Transylvania and Wallachia (now both part of Romania). It seems to me the book illustrates best the way Romania could approach Dracula tourism, with an awareness ‘he’ exists, both Dracula the legend and Vlad the historical figure, but with a focus on what the land stands for, its history, its people, its traditions. Vlad the Impaler did undoubtedly gruesome things, but he is also in some ways responsible for the Romanian Saxon villages of today still being Romanian or Saxon and not Ottoman. He may have been cruel but he was extraordinarily clever and adept at fighting others with their own ways. We still struggle with these issues today, do we not?

Anyway, back to the story of his birthplace…. The Clock Tower which watches over the small square at the center of the citadel is Sighisoara’s most honored landmark. Unique among the towers, it served as the main gate to the citadel. Originally built in the 14^th century, the roof was restored in the Baroque style after a fire in 1676, with the colorful tiles that adorn it added near the turn of the 19^th century. The clock was installed in the 17^th century and features two groups of figurines that alter between day and night, as well as figures for each day of the week. The clock mechanisms have been updated over the years and still function today.

A few steps from the clock tower sits the Monastery Church originally built in the Gothic style in 1289 but rebuilt twice since. Next to it stands the Town Hall, constructed in 1885 in a neo renaissance style. It seems to me a bit out of place amongst the simple charm of the citadel. I prefer the slightly worn, loved look of the old buildings like the one that houses NGO Sustainable Sighisoara, which works to preserve the heritage of Sighisoara and promote sustainable tourism. The long narrow unpaved streets (which once were, and hopefully with the efforts of the NGO will again be, cobblestoned streets) are bordered by small, simple houses in pastel pinks and greens and occasional ochre hues, giving the town a lovely, simple air.

Wanderers can circle the citadel, following along the old wall and its individually designed towers. At 3:00 as one faces the clock tower, opposite the citadel from the Catholic Church and Sustainable Sighisoara, begins the Schoolboys Stairs. A covered wooden structure built in 1642 with 173 steps leading up to the School on the Hill. You can almost hear the shouts of school children and imagine the secretly stolen kisses across the centuries on the long stretch of stairs. The school was originally built in 1522 but replaced with a neo-gothic building in 1901. Behind the School on the Hill sits the aptly named Church on the Hill. It is considered the most valuable historical monument of the town. Begun in the 13^th century in the gothic style, it took almost 200 years to complete. Unfortunately the frescos of the 15^th century were destroyed by overzealous reformers though some have now been restored. It seems the battle for historical preservation has been waged in Sighisoara for centuries.

Next to the church a beautiful cemetery creates a maze of walkways along the ridges of the hill. I spent over an hour walking its grass covered paths, admiring the views of the countryside, and wondering about the thousands of people buried there. On one of the ridges lower down stood two tree covered rows of identical headstones on child sized plots. I couldn’t imagine what disaster had taken so many children at once. Then, reading the headstones, I realized they were graves of soldiers from World War II. The ones whose bodies presumably never made it home. There were two long rows of the matching headstones, perhaps forty, all from this one little town, all young men, cut down in the prime of their life. I don’t understand war. I will never understand war.

The clock tower still serves as a gate of sorts with the road that passes beneath it leading to the “lower” town below. I saw little of the lower town except the main street lined with small shops and stores and little quaint restaurants, giving it that small town feel. The main road winds around to follow the river Tarnava Mare. The most impressive structure in the lower town is certainly the Orthodox Cathedral which sits alone in majesty alongside the river. Built in the Byzantine style and painted black and white it is a stunning contrast to the deep blue Transylvania sky. I paid my respects, as I do to all gods I pass, saying a prayer for the struggles in the heart and hearts of this lovely town.

I loved Sighisoara, for many reasons. It is the first place in two years of chosen homelessness that I have thought to myself, here I would happily build a life, here I could make a home.

Special Times in Sibiu

Thursday, July 5, 2007

While the town of Sibiu is lovely in its own right, it was made truly special by passing the time with a new friend. Standing before the train from Brasov to Sibiu, I saw a young lady walking down the track. It is funny how some whisper on the wind encourages you to make contact with others with whom you end up finding a true connection. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to speak to her as she was walking toward me, but I was and I’m ever so glad for it. The best word to describe Rebecca is lovely. Her accent is lovely, her face, her demeanor, her spirit. As it turned out we had plans to stay in the same hostel so the train ride conversation simply continued as we delighted in the fresh fruit we purchased at the little stand before heading up the hill into Sibiu’s old town center. We checked into the hostel, perfectly located with a delightful view of the charming Piata Mica, and then headed out to tour the town.

Sibiu is a picture perfect town – perhaps a bit too picture perfect. It was voted the European Cultural Capital for 2007 and has spent two years giving its self quite the spit and shine in honor of the occasion. New paint gleams in the sunlight, streets are polished, everything has a just-cleaned-up-for-company feel to it. Walk too far from the city though and you can see where the end of the budget line was drawn as the buildings and streets become their normal dilapidated selves. After all, if you are a few hundred years old, you can’t help but be a little worn around the edges. Rebecca and I actually both liked the lovingly worn look of the side streets around town more than the perfect paid-for polish.

Rather than setting out through the bright and shiny plazas, we wandered past faded color-washed houses with their sleepy-eye windows, through dirt paved streets, and down into the lower parts of town. A chalkboard sign that read Wireless Internet caught my eye and called us into a delightful bar (sans the blasting techno music) for a coffee break after the long train ride. Actually, Rebecca had hot chocolate with the most wondrous whip cream and I had a coffee delight laced with Bailey’s and Kaluha – mmm mmm. We chatted easily over coffee, sharing stories of the road and our lives back home before continuing our tour of the town. We wandered rather aimlessly, stumbling into the little hidden jewels of this cultural capital – the imposing Evangelical Cathedral, the 13^th century Passage of Steps that connects the Upper and Lower towns, the Bridge of Lies named, legend has it, for the merchants’ disputes and the transitory vows of the young lovers who met there. We walked through side streets, past the Orthodox Cathedral, crossing the park that borders the town at one end, and found ourselves at the end of the pedestrian walkway, as colorful and quaint as the one in Brasov, though with a little less bustle. The pedestrian walkway led us back again to the Piata Mare.

The town is strikingly German. Postcards are marked with both its Romanian name, Sibiu, and its German name, Hermannstadt. Tourist signs are written in Romanian and German, or sometimes just German. There were German dressed folk dancers performing on the stage in the main square. The architecture was German as was much of the language spoken in the streets. Actually if you had dropped me blindfolded in the middle of the town then taken off the blindfold, I would never have guessed I would have thought surely I was in Germany.

After our mini-tour we settled into a little café on the edge of the Piata Mare for dinner. We decided to try the Romanian specialty of the house – a plate filled with the mămăligă, a cornmeal type porridge, served with a sweet, thick dressing of sorts and a pile of rich pungent cheese. It was one of the strangest meals I’ve ever had, but not half bad. It would be good comfort food on a rainy, blue day. I wish we had had a bit more spunk to face a night on the town together, but we were both tired from traveling and decided just to turn in early for the night.

Our plan to rent a car the next day and drive through the mountains and up to Peonari castle was thwarted by rain. Instead we made our way back to the coffee shop for more hot chocolate and coffee; actually I had a honey latte this time, and a hot chocolate! The morning hours passed quickly as we wrote postcards and caught up on emails, chatting about the road ahead and life behind and enjoying the slow pace that comes with rain. Before we knew it, it was time for my train. We thought it was a last good bye, but as luck would have it I was still in Sighisoara when she passed through a few days later and we were able to share dinner and a beer before parting ways again.

Just writing about our time together takes me to the soft, easy space I felt in her presence. She was a delight to pass time with and made Sibiu a special treasure. She has now made a couchsurfing profile (I wonder who talked her into that) and I sincerely hope we keep in touch until our paths cross somewhere in this world again. I am reminded once again of my friend Serena’s words in Vienna – what matters most is not the places you see, it is the people you meet.

To My Fellow Americans

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Closing my eyes, a lifetime of July 4^th celebrations floods my memory. Sitting on a bridge over the Potomac with Garrick and Patrick watching the DC sky fill with patriotic honor. Standing on the rooftop of the skyscraper in Miami with Mikey and Patrick and the girls (by permission of the security guard who we busted up there with his girlfriend) watching fireworks directly in front of our very eyes on the other side of the 8ft glass wall. Another year standing with our little family so close to a brilliant Dallas fireworks show that we were choked from the sulphuric fumes and left with scraps of paper and pieces of cardboard in our hair from the exploded carton bodies of the bright jewels of light. The night as a teenager my roommate and I snuck out to go with my boyfriend and his friend to watch the display over Lake Placid and stayed, the four of us, lost in young adolescent passion in a little hotel room nearby. I think we got busted later though I don’t remember. Those few blessed and far too short years when Patrick would sit on my thrust out hip and ooh and ahh his delight at the magical sky above. The time when he was just four years old and we snuck into the half floor that was under construction on Biscayne Bay and ran from barren window to barren window catching a glimpse of dozens of pyrotechnics shows in every direction of the Miami night. All the glorious years wrapping up Charlotte’s Symphony in the Park, my favorite Charlotte tradition, with a night of music and celebration and fireworks.

Hot dogs and plastic silverware and patriotic tunes on the radio at friends’ houses and lake houses and amusement parks in years gone by. Fourth of July always had a bustle about it that I liked. An easy tradition of potato salad and summer celebration and social gatherings all ended with a magical display of light. I think of my friends and family and what they are doing back home as I look out over the Romanian hillside. I think of all the Americans flittering about in celebration and hope that in the midst of the celebration they take a moment to really ponder, to really appreciate the great blessing they were given the day they were born in our country.

Yes, I know, we have our problems. Taxes are too high, government can be corrupt, big business has too much power, the press is unreliable, people are self-interested. And all of these things can be said, to a greater or lesser degree, in every country I have thus far been to in the world. However, there are many things that cannot be said about those countries, that can be said about ours.

We can travel on a tourist visa to virtually any country in the world – no paperwork, no applications, no hassles, and, with few exceptions, no charge. Our country was built, much of it, on the labor of Polish workers in the turn of the century yet a Pole cannot fly to New York for holiday. An Italian can not quite his job and travel awhile with the knowledge he can return and readily find another job in his career field, nor can he open a business without connections or greasing a few palms along the way. The average middle income Bulgarian makes about 250 dollars a month, 250 dollars. True their living expenses are less – beer and cigarettes cost about a buck - but how do you ever leave your country’s borders if that is your income? You can barely get a hotel room in London for one night for $250. Wealthy people live in lovely appointed apartments in dilapidated buildings because there are no non-dilapidated buildings around and no single family homes to choose from. In even the nicer homes in these areas, the bathrooms are often so small you sit on the toilet to take a shower – really.

We in America have so much space, so much luxury, so much freedom, and so much opportunity – more than any single country in the world. We, you and I, drew the lucky card, the long stick, the winning lotto ticket the day we gasped our first breath in this country, our land of beautiful spacious skies and amber waves of grain, with its purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains. Today, as you eat your hot dogs and marvel at the fireworks and laugh with your friends take a moment to appreciate, really appreciate that you were born in this gracious land that stretches from sea to shining sea.

Bran and Brasov and Other Delights

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

A random suggestion by a random train traveling encounter brought me to the charming town of Brasov. Located in the center of Romania, in the region of Transylvania, it is nestled in the surrounding Carpathian Mountains. It is one of Romania’s larger cities at just under a quarter of a million people, but you wouldn’t know it walking through the picturesque streets of old town or across the Piata Sfatutuli (Council Square). The surrounding landscape is beautiful and even the bold white-lettered-Hollywood-copycat-sign, which of course instead reads BRASOV instead of Hollywood, grows on you after awhile as a quaint oddity. The town boasts an impressive array of gothic, renaissance, and baroque architecture including the Black Church, Romania’s largest gothic church. An impressive building from the outside though I found the rafters strewn with Turkish rugs (albeit an impressive collection) a rather odd way of decorating a church.

I settled into the Kismet hostel when I arrived Sunday night, thankful for the wireless internet connection, and the chance to catch up on some work. The transition in and out of New York this year took a greater toll on me than I anticipated and so I am valiantly trying to figure out how to balance working on the road doing research with traveling and writing. I really wish the gods above had given us 36 hour days instead of the measly 24 hour ones we must make do with.

Monday morning I set off with a group of others from the hostel to visit Rasnov Fortress and Bran Castle. Rasnov Fortress sits high above the town of Rasnov (duh) on a rocky hilltop. It was one of several fortresses on Bran Pass, the trade route that connected Wallachia with Transylvania. Because it was also intended as a refuge during sieges, it is structured more like a village than other fortresses typical for the area. It is a remarkable construction with its walls and streets that wind ever upward. But it was its perch in the midst of nature with a view of the plains below stretching to the mountains that I found most impressive. It boasts an interesting little museum, a couple over-priced tourist shops, and a 143 meter well that legend claims two Turkish prisoners spent 17 years digging on the promise of their freedom when they were finished. They were indeed freed, of this world anyway.

From Rasnov (which by the way also sports a white-block-Hollywood-copycat sign on the side of a hill), we headed to Bran Castle, dubbed Dracula’s Castle thanks not to history but to literature. Stoker allegedly used Bran Castle as a model for Dracula’s castle in his book. Subsequently, Bran Castle was used to film several Dracula movies and thus the connection was created. In actuality there is no historical evidence that Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure on whom Dracula is based, spent more than one night there. In 1920 it was given to Queen Maria of Great Romania who lived there for 27 years, after which it was opened as a museum. It is more a testament to royal heritage with its impressive furniture and other adornments than the spooky castle one might expect. As such, it is really quite lovely with its white washed walls and dark wood trim. Interestingly the castle itself makes not one mention of Dracula on the information boards or in the brochures. Step into the market below, however, and you can find all the tacky vampire paraphernalia a Buffy lover could want. The castle itself is actually for sale right now for a cool 145 million dollars. Let’s hope no Dracula fanatic billionaire buys it and turns it into a haunted house…

We returned in the late afternoon and I took a catnap before heading out to wander Brasov ‘old town center’ in search of food. The Council Square reminded me a great deal of the main square in Tallin, Estonia, though Brasov’s is much larger. Legend claims it was to this very square that the Pied Piper led the lost children of Hamelin when he was cheated by the Burghers after ridding their city of rats. A funny fact since it may also have been the Pied Piper who led me here, in a sense. Transylvania was one of the few places that had lured me as a young girl. I thought little of the world beyond our American shores until I was a woman with my own children, but I held from a tender age a distant memory of a dream of Transylvania. I cannot remember for sure where this yearning came from, though it was surely a book. I will have to peruse my childhood library, which I still have amongst the dozen boxes of books that make up most of my worldly possessions, to see which one. But the Pied Piper was one of my favorite childhood characters so perhaps it was my desire to follow the sound of his flute that created my dream of walking the hills of Transylvania long ago.

The Old Town Hall built in 1420 stands guard with its solitary clock tower at the edge of the pave stone square which is bordered by brightly colored buildings with ornately decorated windows. A modern style fountain sits between the clock tower and the cafes, where people sit or stretch out on its many leveled steps or dip warm feet in the cool water. The fountain adds a peaceful feel to the square, filling the air with the tranquil sound of water and reflecting bright prisms of light from the sun setting beyond the hills. Benches and lampposts and flower boxes make the big open space cozy and inviting to lovers and readers and those who just wanted to sit for awhile, while sidewalk cafes on the edges offered easy wicker chairs and umbrella covered tables for ice-cream treats or heavier fare.

I chose the inviting beer garden with its heavy oak picnic tables and benches and settled in for something to eat and some writing. Having not eaten in a couple days, I ordered the biggest plate in the biggest picture I saw - a wooden platter with three carved holes, one of which held a hock of ham, the other potatoes with parsley, and the third, pickles, prepared like a vegetable sides dish. They were actually quite good. I drank my Ursus beer (funny that I enjoy beer when I travel but never back in the states) and watched the sun set over the square as I worked on the last of the articles for Bulgaria.

A walk through the town with a happy, full tummy revealed a bustling pedestrian walkway crowned with shops and cafes in buildings with alternating pastel colors and ornate architectural flourishes adorning the windows and roof lines above. Several of the town’s original seven bastions still stand, though they are so incorporated into the framework of the city they can be easy to miss. The Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church is stunning, though the cemetery in front of it on a still quiet night seems more befitting a Dracula movie than did Bran Castle on a bustling tourist-filled day!

Tuesday I got up early and headed to Sinaia for a tour of Peles Castle, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful castles in all of Europe. Sinaia itself is a renowned mountain spa resort and has that sort of force-fed peacefulness of the rich around it. The buildings are mammoth and intriguing in their architecture styles, beautiful jewels set in the stunning mountain scenery. I stopped first by the monastery for which the town gets its name. It was built in 1695 built by a Romanian after he returned from Mt. Sinai and is still a functioning monastery to this day. From there I wound my way up the hill past the artisan market filled with crafts of the region. The laces and linens adorning many of the booths were exquisite, bringing images to mind of a home with curtains blowing lightly in the wind and lovely ceramics atop lace covered tables with tea settings for two.

The castle comes into view slowly, only revealing its full grandeur when you are actually standing at its center on the road below. It is an impressive structure indeed. I particularly loved the manicured gardens with their statues looking out over the valley to the mountains beyond. The rooms inside the castle were named and decorated for great cities or countries – The Venetian and Florentine Rooms, the Spanish dining room, the Turkish sitting room (one of my favorites), and of course the French parlor. The armory was one of the most impressive I’ve seen, replete with a full suit of armor for knight and horse and an amazing array of firearms, swords, knives, and other weapons. The oriental weapon collection in the smaller armory was stunning. The music room boasted a teak table and chairs set that was carved by one family over three generations. As an American, it is hard to imagine one generation holding a single job for life much less three! The last room of the tour, an art-nouveau theatre was replete with custom made paintings by Gustav Klimt, one of my favorite artists. I had always liked his work, which is commercial fodder all over the states, well enough, but standing before his actual paintings in Vienna is an awe-inspiring experience. It was a special treat to see lesser known pieces of his work here in the hills of Romania.

The castle was striking in its luxuriant devotion to art and beauty but sometimes I leave those places wondering if we couldn’t be using money for better things, like feeding people. Though I guess if you pay a family for three generations to carve a table you are feeding them. Still the opulence is sometimes a bit lost on me.

It was a lovely walk back down through the town but a tiring, slow train ride back to Brasov and a long night of work that followed. Wednesday morning I took one last stroll through the town before heading to the train station and onward to Sibiu, happy to have taken up that random suggestion from a random train encounter.

Bulgarian Stream of Consciousness

The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful, and The Ugly

Sunday, July 1, 2007

• Bulgarian techno music – Beautiful because at least it is not American music! I get so tired of hearing the theme from Grease overseas
• Hearing George Michael, Prince, and the theme to 9 ½ weeks – BAD, c’mon guys there has been music made since 1982
• Bulgarian Hospitality – Definitely beautiful.
• Bulgarian Greed – UGLY, was charged double for internet and told so ‘because speak you English”; also charged for milk in my coffee, twice the rate of stamps at the post office, and breakfast because the breakfast “allowance” in the ‘included breakfast’ was less than one cup of coffee.
• Hiker’s Hostel in Plovdiv – BEAUTIFUL – the people were wonderful and so very helpful. The accommodations reasonable, the internet free, and the price exceptional.
• Plovdiv Women – hmmm, HOT would be a better adjective.
• The Cyrillic Alphabet – Good, much easier to learn than I thought. I enjoyed the challenge of reading the signs and finding how many were actually in English but written in Cyrillic letters instead of Roman letters. I’ve gotten pretty good at it now.
• The Heat – UGLY. Plovdiv was incredibly oppressive; the Black Sea not much better.
• Rila Monastery – breathtakingly Beautiful
• Bulgarian cherries – sigh, beautiful and inspiring, and they taste pretty damn good
• Bulgarian politics – Bad and Ugly when it is Mafia controlled
• Ralitza – Beautiful
• Orlin – Beautiful
• Vlady – Beautiful
• Angel – Beautiful
• My new Bulgarian family – Beautiful beyond words
• Keeping up Bulgarian appearances – not sure if it is bad or good, it is more important to take your friends out than to keep your home up, it says much for their hospitality but little for aesthetics in the city
• The shores of the Black Sea – beautiful shades of purple from the mussel shells broken along the shore, from the richest royal purple to the lightest lavender, lovely
• Kpuboto – hmmm, I won’t tell
• The slogan for Sofia – “You WILL Like Sofia” disconcerting if not ugly seeing as how it is a picture of the mayor pointing his finger like Uncle Sam. A mayor who claims to be ex-Mafia. I thought the only way you became ex-mafia was in a casket!
• Communist concrete block buildings – oh so ugly – especially since there are no condominium arrangements and no enforcement to provisions for common areas, thus all are in a sad state of disrepair.
• The price of cigarettes – Good if you’re a smoker but perhaps bad in the end for the Bulgarians who wake up, go to sleep, and pass the day with a cigarette permanently wedged between their lips. I’ve always been curious, why do Americans all die of lung cancer from smoking and Europeans don’t?
• Garage Bars – good, cheap, and cool
• The price of beer – Great!
• People who throw their trash out the window – So, so ugly.
• People like Ralitza who clean it up – Beautiful
• Bulgarian Salads – Good!
• The Bulgarian countryside – Beautiful!
• The aftermath of communism – depends who you ask…. Some miss the security – they were willing to pay the price of freedom and luxury for security. Others are eagerly embracing the capitalist ways, (and means)
• Rositsa, the hostess with the mostest, and her boyfriend Emil - Definitely beautiful!
• The bathrooms – Bad! Ugly! Bad! Ugly! Without a doubt, country wide, the worst restrooms I have seen in my travels.
• Sunflower fields – Stunning
• The architecture – Beautiful, especially near the centers, especially when the buildings are maintained.
• Cost of Living – Great – if you’re making an American salary.

A Song of Loneliness in the Symphony of Life

Friday, June 29, 2007

The theme from the Godfather drifts upon the night air into my wide open window. Here, in the night, eight floors high, it is be hard to imagine the dirty, dilapidated, poverty stricken residential area of Varna I walked through, following a stranger to a room for rent. It is often hard for me to set aside my American tendency to equate poverty with crime. Having lived in Harlem and the ‘bad side’ of Prospect Park, always without incident, I have begun to wonder whether that is a false association that we are simply convinced to believe. Greed certainly brings out the worst in people, but I see more greed on Wall Street than in the people with simple homes who may covet the manicured lawns of American single family homes but certainly not enough to hurt others in a manic effort to have more.

The moon is rising, only the slightest breath missing from its fullness. It seems as if it is shining just for me, looking down upon me, its faint smile encouraging words from my fingertips. The sounds of life are all around. Music from the nearby tenements, dogs barking, cars and crickets, the occasional flap of a seagull’s wings, and, of course, the sound of human voices. Despite this symphony of life, I feel alone tonight. There has been a deep solitary longing in my heart this trip. I can neither place it, nor overcome it, nor fill it. I do not understand it yet it is here with me, a shadow standing over me with every step. It loses its form during special moments shared with those I have met, Orlin and Ralitza and the boys particularly, but it does not leave me. I have thought often of going home. But there is no home to go to. I have thought of finding a retreat to work on the book. But I need more material and that can only be found on the road. And so, I am driving forward, but it is not the excited race to the next experience that it was last year. It is more like a dinner engagement with a treasured friend after a long hard day at the office. You really don’t feel like going. You know you will enjoy it once you are there, but you are tired and you know the tiredness will lay like gauze between you and the evening. Still I will go if for nothing else than the treasured friends I will make along the way.

Writer's Nest in Nesebar

Friday, June 29, 2007

The day is heavy, pregnant beyond term with the unbearable heat of summer long before it is due. Even the seagulls sit beneath cornices and solar panels, hiding from the sun. The raucous rabble of the morning has been replaced by dead, still silence. It is almost eerie - a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” Seagulls sitting, waiting, watching, silently from the rafters of the town.

My linguistic tongue is loosening as I settle into two days of writing in Nesebar. The hotel is a splurge - $40 a day, but I have an attic room, a view of the sea, my own open patio, a fan, and a refrigerator – one unfortunately too small to climb into. I instead resort to a cold shower every hour when the sweat has again collected in pools beneath my joints. At least I am not tempted by the lovely town outside my door. There is not even the memory of wind in this air. At over 40 degrees Celsius, I don’t think I would make it to the next cobblestone without melting into a puddle. Visions of the liquid-ore Terminator cross my mind. And so I am content here, my own perch in the rafters along with the seagulls, watching my clothes dry in the afternoon sun and writing.

Nesebar (pronounced Neh-SAY-bur) is a delightful seaside village. A bridge divides the island known as “Old Nesebar” from “New Nesebar.” The shiny pastel-colored adobe hotels on the mainland, easy rivals to Atlantis and other Caribbean retreats, watch over the old terra cotta tiled roofs of the old town as people wander its cobblestone streets looking for that perfect souvenir to carry home. Again the old and new hold hands, quite literally, as Old Nesebar stretches its fingertips to just touch the mainland, creating the road that carries cars and beach-clad strollers back and forth between the two, past the 18^th century windmill that stands sentry at the center point. Old Nesebar was at one point an island, but as the threat of invasions that have created the rise and fall of Bulgarian history receded, the small isthmus was built allowing tourists to travel back and forth freely with their money rather than warriors with their weapons. Old Nesebar was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 1983.

Nesebar’s history closely parallels that of Plovdiv. Originally a Thracian settlement founded in the 2^nd millennium BC, it became a Greek Colony and an important trading center. There are still remains from the Hellenistic period. The Romans took over in the first century AD, and though it did not thrive as Plovdiv did, it maintained its glory. It became an important Byzantine stronghold and was much coveted in the wars between the Byzantines and the Bulgarians. The Crusaders conquered it in 1366 and handed it back to Byzantium.

It is impossible to wander down the quaint walkways lined with souvenir, clothing, and trinket shops without stumbling into one of the small island’s eleven churches. From the Church of St Sophia built in the 5^th century to the Church of St Clement built in the 17^th century, the architecture and diversity of the church designs are enough to impress even the hard-core beach goers. This is after all a beach resort.

A long walk or a short Disney-like train will carry the sun-worshippers and fun seekers to nearby Sunny Beach, where beach-ism at its finest seeps from every pore. Music blasts out of tiki huts while the thong-clad Bulgarian babes sip cocktails decorated with fruit slices and little umbrellas. It is a bit of Myrtle Beach meets Caribbean Paradise.

I was tired when I arrived, having taken a three hour stroll through Burgas before catching the connecting bus. I use the term ‘stroll’ loosely for it is difficult to stroll in 100 degree heat. Still, I tried - clicking pictures, window shopping, and wandering through the trees of the seaside park to catch my first glimpse of the Black Sea. Burgas was like a worn-out version of Plovdiv and I was glad I had taken the family’s advice to go on to Nesebar. I arrived in Nesebar, sweating already from the bus ride. After 20 minutes of walking in that wretched heat with 15 kilos on my back, I swore under my breath I would take the first hotel I saw. There would be no bargain hunting today.

The word hotel hung magically in the sunlight. I stepped, or should I say collapsed, into the nicely tiled and plant covered reception area of a small hotel where not one but two fans circulated blessedly cool air. A young girl beamed at me from behind the desk. Brown as the earth with not even the memory of a tan line, she smiled at me from behind the most unique eyes I had ever seen. They were green; well not green exactly, not like the forest trees or rose stems or even the hazel green of ripening hay, the color of my mother’s eyes. No, they were green like the Adriatic sea on a cloudy day - a light, almost clear color with a hint of green that once was and has since drifted with the sunlight. They were striking. And she, she was precious.

She eagerly attended my every request, showing me the different rooms she had, offering fans and tables and anything she could to make my stay comfortable. I could not resist the attic room, having always had a little-girl dream to one day live in one. She left me to settle in with the promise I would come down later and tell her about my travels and couchsurfing. I did, bonding a mutually-envious friendship over the tales, her for my freedom to travel and me for the life ahead of her that she had to it.

Michaela is just 18 from the Czech Republic, though she looks more like 22 and acts more like 30. She and her mother spent every summer here for 14 years. Over the time, she made friends and learned Bulgarian and is now renting a little room and working at the hotel. She has a flair for languages. Her English is quite good, her Bulgarian fluent. She has a smoldering sex appeal that catches the eye of every man who walks by. The boys look at her as if she were a goddess yet she dismisses the attention with a shrug of her shoulders, a roll of her eyes, and a seeming unawareness of the power of beauty that goes to many girls’ heads.

She was a delight the next three days, offering me pleasant reprieves from my writing. She took me through both Old and New Nesebar and we chatted about life and boys, and distant lands, stopping to shop for swimsuits or flip-flops. She was my staunch defender against the Bulgarian tradition of charging “English speakers” more than other tourists – a custom that continues despite laws being passed banning it. She was enamored by the idea of couchsurfing so we sat side by side at the internet café creating her Couchsurfing profile. Thursday morning I packed up my bag and headed to her place – her first official couchsurfer. I felt like a proud mamma, bringing one more chickling into our community of trust and travel, making the world smaller one couch at a time, closer one person at a time.

We parted ways with a hug and a smile and the promise that we would meet again. She hopes to live in the states for a year when she finishes school to work on her English and then to become a flight attendant for an international airline. I have a feeling she will do whatever she sets her mind to.

I waved goodbye to Nesebar from the bus window, happy to have had the writing reprieve, excited for the new stories that lie ahead.

The Bus to Burgas

Monday, June 26, 2007

The morning sun rose to the raucous cries of the seagulls. It seemed as if they were calling us both, me and the sun into the new day. Hurry. Hurry. Much to do, much to see. Seagulls are the oddest of creatures. So beautiful in flight, swooping down, dancing with the clouds, playing with the air itself. They are lovely to behold at their best, and yet they can be so nasty, fighting, clawing, grasping for food, for security, for space. I guess they are much like us in that regard.

The caws from just beyond the window rose and fell in time as I twisted and turned in the bed. My back ached from the day of traveling. What damage hadn’t been wreaked by the bus ride, was finished off by the hour walk with my pack searching for a place to sleep. The bus from Plovdiv to Burgas was oversold by two. They split up a family of three, putting the wife in the jumpseat and the daughter next to me in the front seat and told the father to go sit on the stairs. The exchange took place with the husband who spoke Bulgarian so I didn’t at the time understand what was happening. It was clear the wife was livid. She had a cold, hard face. One that I’m sure in her country, in her language could have put the driver off the bus before her husband was forced on the stairs. You could see in her eyes she had lived a hard life and had learned to survive, to be strong, to fight when necessary and sometimes, perhaps, when it was not. I would not want to meet her in a dark alley. The daughter next to me kept craning her neck to see where her dad was. “Mom, they made him sit on the stairs!” She cried down to her mother in the jumpseat ahead and below us. The bus had already begun to move. I quietly gathered my things and as invisibly as possible, which it wasn’t, slipped out of my seat and back to the exit stairs.

He looked marooned on a desert island, sitting there in the darkened cavern created by the steps. It took me almost five minutes to convince him but finally he sheepishly handed over the little blue cushion they had given him, smiled gratefully, and went to join his wife and daughter. I settled on to the small step, kicked off my shoes, rested my feet on the door hinge, and pulled out my book. I was reading The Historian, chosen for its setting in Romania and other Eastern European countries. It is about a historian’s search for the truth and/or existence of Dracula and so in some odd way it seemed quite apropos to be riding in this crypt-like hole across the Bulgarian countryside with the sunshine somewhere high above me. The bus ride was five hours. I did eventually get a seat. But not before the damage was done from sitting on the thin little steps, the stair above inevitably wedged into the small of my back.

I fell asleep in the sweet comfort of my own seat to the shifting contrasts between the crisp green and yellow of the sunflower fields against the wheat fields and the hills beyond. Sunflowers have always made my heart smile. I don’t know why, but they do. I awoke as we came into Bourgas. People were shifting in their seats, looking to take in the new surroundings. Perhaps for others like me, it was their first time to the Black Sea. I was still trying to blink the sleep from my eyes, when the slow realization dawned that someone was turned around in a seat ahead of me, staring at me intently, as if trying to get my attention. The face came into focus and I realized it was the wife. Her cold hard face melted into a beatific smile. Her forehead softened and dropped, her eyes widened, her head bowed ever so slightly. All the tension in muscles taught to maintain composure and strength released as she mouthed with intense sincerity, “Thank You.”

As I tossed in the bed, searching for a comfortable position, the memory of her smile came to me. The transformation was so complete. It was like watching one of those digital image conversions from a dragon’s face to a cherub angel. She had waited for me when we got off the bus. She shook her head in disbelief. “I would never have believed anyone would do something so kind.” My heart was simultaneously warmed and saddened. Warmed for the knowledge that this tiny offer of kindness had softened something in the woman before me. Given her a tiny piece of kindness in a world she didn’t expect to find. And saddened for the thought that it wouldn’t be the most natural thing in the world to give up a seat so a family on vacation could sit together.

I turned to a slight angle, consciously focusing on each vertebra, gently encouraging it to release, to let go of the tension. I pictured her sweet smile, her face as it softened from hard guardedness to open, genuine appreciation. I let the image melt into my spine like chocolate, winding its way through the vertebrae, releasing the tension, softening the muscles, returning movement to its natural state of trust. I closed my eyes to the still waking morning sun as the song of the gulls gently carried me to the clouds beyond and back to a sleep filled with dreams of the beauty of seagulls in flight.

Happy Hostelling!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

I had to laugh at myself the other morning. Okay so I do that often, but this was one of those derisive laughs we smile upon those who needed to be and have been humbled. What was it Jesus said – something about before you lament the twig in the eye of another why don’t you uproot the friggin’ redwood in your own….

Long ago I learned, and far to regularly I forget, that we are all merely mirrors for one another. We see reflected back to us only that which we know in ourselves, that which we recognize. Though we would rather not admit it, we cringe at atrocities in the world not only because we abhor the suffering that comes from them but because I think we know in some hidden corner of our soul that we are all, all of us, capable of such things given a certain set of circumstances. We are certainly capable of turning a blind eye to suffering, in the world, in our streets, in our hearts.

So here I spend my life, quite literally, trying to open the minds of others to other worlds, to the concept of travel, encouraging everyone I meet to experience other cultures and create connections, to meet and commune with the wonderful people of this world. I preach by example as well as by word, traveling alone with faith in others, embracing foreign lands, always open to new people, new food, new ways. I try to say everyday with my life, “The world is open to you. You can create any life you want. Every single day is filled with opportunity, with possibility, with connections waiting to happen.” Couchsurfing is often my platform – I launch into my spiel about people in this world all basically trying to do the same thing – keep the bills paid, the food on the table, the love in their hearts, and a bit of peace in their soul even though they may dress and pray in homes that look different speaking languages that sound different, about living in a world of trusting and trustworthy people. “We are united in this tribe of man – just open to the world and you will find it is filled with amazing experiences and connections waiting to happen. Trust yourself, your intuition, the basic goodness of man and open to life, to God, the Universe, the Travel Angels or whatever name you give to That Which Watches Over You and he/she/they/ it will indeed watch over you.” That’s my stance.

“So, Miss Wde-Open-to-Life and Mighty, why have you never stayed in a hostel before?” I asked myself as I settled into sleep in the dorm room where my new friends were already breathing that slow rhythmic breath of slumber. I knew the answer before I finished asking myself the question. Because I was scared. Yes me, little Miss World Traveler. Scared that I would feel out of place, that I would be twice everyone’s age, that I wouldn’t belong, that they would whisper about me behind my back “what does she think SHE is doing.” Basically, scared I would be back in grade school where none of the kids liked me. When I couldn’t find a couch, I would go to a hotel instead, convinced that hostels were filled with 18 year olds drinking beer who would feel intruded upon by someone old enough to be their grandmother; convinced there was something to fear in the unknown, forgetting that the only fear in the unknown is that it is unknown.

The Hiker’s Hostel was set in the Old Town of Plovdiv. The first night I paid a little more to stay closer to the center, thinking I would only need a place for one night. I wasn’t even staying with Hiker’s, but Pete let me use the internet for hours and even gave me a beer, all for about a buck. The next day when my other plans fell through, I trudged my backpack up the hill. Pete, my savior, opened up the second building for me a few blocks away where I had the run of the place to myself – two beds in the single room, and three bunkbeds to choose from. It reminded me of the dorms back in Colorado. I complained so much about having roommates my dorm mother finally opened an entire floor and gave me one of the rooms. I think she thought I would shrivel up all alone like that. She was wrong. I was happiest when I was alone.

Since Pete had given me run of the place for the price of a dorm bed so I couldn’t really complain the next day when someone paid full price for the two bed room and I was moved into the dorm. Still I dreaded sleeping in the dorm with others. As it turned out Emma and Mark were delightful and much to my surprise I slept just fine.

I discovered, now that I actually TRIED IT, that I really enjoyed the hostel experience. I love couchsurfing, love being that close to the people and culture of the country I am visiting, but hostelling opened up another experience, almost as valuable - the chance to commune with other travelers, others doing the same things as you. I enjoyed the comraderie, chatting about places we’d been or were going, sharing travel books and stories. I was touched sitting there the last morning as two travelers headed in one direction offered their leftover Turkish money to the couple headed to Istanbul. It was nice too being able to spread the couchsurfing word amongst travelers. Since hostelling, six of the people I met have signed up profiles and some have already written to me telling me of their new experiences. It makes me feel like I’m doing something to deserve my little yellow flag (as a Nomadic Ambassador).

Each of the hostels had a different feel to it – though I didn’t like any as well as I did the Hiker’s Hostel in Plovdiv. While the other employees at Kismit and Old Town Sibiu were perfectly nice and helpful upon request, there was a delight in the employees at Hiker’s Hostel. They really loved being part of a hostel, watching people come and go, meeting people from around the world, helping them find their way on to new worlds. Kismet in Brasov and Old Town in Sibiu felt like businesses, effectively run operations rather than little havens for travelers. Perhaps I was just lucky to have Hiker’s Hostel for a first experience.

I received an email from them the other day. They had mailed a package for me despite that it had cost double what we had guessed it would cost. They mailed it anyway and sent me an email asking that I wire the difference to their bank account when I had the chance. Of course I will, with a few extra Lev to ensure their wonderful staff has a few beers on me to show my appreciation. Thanks guys – you were a great first time!

Pleasant Days in Plovdiv

Monday, June 25, 2007

Plovdiv was a lovely little town, far more user friendly than Sofia. The second largest city in Bulgaria at just under 400,000 people, it did not have Sofia’s display of wealth but nor did it have Sofia’s undercurrent of oppression. Not really oppression in the normal sense, but the simmering resentment beneath the surface by many who liked the responsibilities that communism lifted from the shoulders of man, even at the cost of their freedom, and resented having to pick up the yolk of simple everyday responsibilities once tended to by the government.

While the center of Sofia is beautiful – shiny bright with grand architecture and the gleaming yellow brick road that glistens in the sunlight, the city beyond the tiny nut of a center is a different picture entirely. Block houses line the busy thoroughfares or sit in clusters on side streets in a terrible state of disrepair. The city prides itself on the fact that there is little tenancy. Most people actually own their space in the communist concrete blocks spread from end to end of the city. But there are no condominium laws, no arrangements made for maintenance of the common areas, no specifications for building management. Where arrangements are made, there is no procedure in place to enforce them. Elevators are in various states of disrepair, paint is peeling everywhere, plaster chunks missing, buildings are cracked, nothing is clean, and trash lays in piles on the ground where residents have simply thrown it out their window rather than carrying it to a trash receptacle.

The principle of “someone else’s problem” thrives in Sofia and will, unfortunately, hold the city back from much of the economic potential it has as the country opens to the world via the European Union. Then again, I guess all cultures have their Achilles Heel when it comes to leaving a mess to others. Americans don’t throw trash out the window of their homes, but most sure don’t think for a second about the millions of individual plastic containers, cups, cans, bottles and silverware they add to Mother Earth everyday; much less the air that is continuously destroyed so we can keep up with our solo SUVs and shiny consumerism.

Plovdiv had its share of buildings in disrepair, particularly at the outskirts of town, but all in all the neighborhoods around the center felt more like the lovingly worn neighborhoods of Italy than the almost resentful disregard of Sofia neighborhoods. Rather than the pristine, pompous perfection of Sofia’s center town, Plovdiv had a simple, clean pedestrian walkway lined with pastel-painted shops, sprinkled with benches and trees, and punctuated by art sculptured fountains and squares. The mile or so long walkway is flanked at one end by the verdant, overflowing King Simeon’s Garden and at the other by the remains of the old Roman Stadium sitting aside the Jumaia Mosque built in the 15^th century after the Turks took over. At the mosque, the road turns and carries the avid walker up into the cobble-stoned streets of Old Town.

I walked the old town many times in my few days there, always barefoot in memory of my first stroll along the stones with Ralitza by my side. Ralitza and her husband Orlin hosted me in Sofia with their little boys Vladimir and Angel. Whatever ugliness lay in the city streets was more than made up for by the beauty in their home and the love and friendship they so graciously shared with me. Ralitza could not have become any closer to me as a sister in heart than when she leaned over to take her shoes off and walk the Plovdiv streets barefooted. For the years I lived in Charlotte, patrons of the local Starbucks always knew when spring arrived, not for the flowers on the trees, but because Sherry stopped wearing shoes. I have always loved the feeling of bare ground against my feet, be it grass or dirt, sand, cobblestones, or even concrete, but rarely do I meet others who will share that joy with me. One of my most treasured memories in life will be walking the cool cobble stones of Plovdiv, barefooted, sharing the gypsy spirit with the beautiful woman by my side, surrounded by the little family that came to be like my own in my too-short days with them. After Ralitza and Orlin returned to Sofia, I continued to walk the streets barefooted, alone, but always with Ralitza by my side in spirit.

Scaling the hill again and again, I would marvel at the Roman Amphitheatre that sits on a perch high above the town with a stunning sunset view of the valley below and surrounding hills. My children laugh at me that I am so taken with the concept of “old things” that are still here with us. They told me years later how on our trip to Italy when they were teenagers they used to stand behind me and silently mimic me – “Imagine! This painting was painted 500 years ago!” Or, “This building has been standing here 1,000 years! Can you believe!?” They would have really laughed at me as I stood, mouth agape, looking down on the Roman amphitheatre built around 115 AD. It is one of the best preserved and one of only a few still working amphitheatres in Europe. Imagine! Almost 2,000 years of performances!

They were performing an opera the first night I was there. I was enraptured, not just by the opera, but by the antiquity and modernity of it all, living side by side. The electrical wires of the lights and sound systems snaking their way across stones laid thousands of years ago, shining a brightness the Romans could not have imagined, filling the world with sound so rich they would have thought only the muses themselves could be singing. The second day I was there, it was too hot to move. I chose a table at the café above the amphitheatre and spent the day writing, glorying in the beauty of what was, and is.

A little research made me appreciate this little, seemingly unpretentious, town all the more. According to Lucian the Greek, Plovdiv was the largest and most beautiful town in all of Thrace. Remember the “Thracians” from your Greek and Roman mythology or history course? The Plovdivians of today were the Thracians of yesteryear. Plovdiv was a contemporary city of Troy, mentioned by both Homer and Herodotus. It was built upon one of three hills that made a triangle in the Valley of Thrace, and its people, the Thracians, are considered the oldest population on the Balkans. In 342 BC, Phillip II conquered the settlement, surrounded it with walls, and called it Philippopolis, the city of Phillip. The Romans recognized its strategic value, given its location, and spent two centuries trying to conquer it. In 72 BC they succeeded, changing the name to Trimontium. Over the centuries that followed, Trimontium became the center of the Roman Province of Thrace. The city had a golden age during the second and third centuries. It earned the right to collect taxes and mint coins. Roads were built giving it an enviable access infrastructure that would continue through modern day. The city was adorned with lavish buildings, public baths, not one but two amphitheatres, stadiums and all the accoutrements of a thriving Roman center, including an impressive aqueduct system, all of which contributed to make it a world centre for the Sacred Games.

With the collapse of the Roman Empire, it became part of Byzantium and was completely rebuilt by Emperor Justinian the Great. The Slavs settled there in the middle of the sixth century, changing the ethnic image of the region, and adopting the name Pulpudeva, which eventually became Plovdiv. After the establishment of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, Plovdiv became a border city of exceptional importance in the struggle between Byzantium and young Bulgaria. Passed back and forth several times, it was officially included in Bulgaria in 834.

Plovdiv was located on the main military route on the Balkan Peninsula and was one of the stops on the way of the crusaders. During the 14^th century the Turks invaded, making Constantinople the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and, in 1364, seized Plovdiv. The mosque next to the Roman Stadium at the end of the pedestrian walkway was the first sign of distinct Ottoman type planning. The Turks ruled Plovdiv, as they did all of Bulgaria, until the Russians helped to free the country from Turk rule at the end of the 19^th century. Today, lovely stone-foundationed, wooden-overhang houses built during the Bulgarian Revival press the cobblestone streets, creating a delightful dance of architectural history spanning more than 2,000 years.

Interestingly, it continues to be Plovdiv’s location, those good old Roman roads, that make it a city of prime importance today. It will soon be the intersection point of a major new highway system that will link Bulgaria with its neighbors Turkey and Greece. With several schools and universities, the town is filled with the vibrancy of youth. Saturday night thousands of teenagers and young adults turned out for the Preslava concert at the beer festival. They stood on the benches stomping their feet and singing in time with the pop-folk singer. Her music was actually quite good – an interesting mix of American pop influences with a Turkish sounding rhythm sung in, of course, Bulgarian. One of the lovely girls who worked at the Hikers Hostel, which is, by the way, one of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed at, was kind enough to burn a CD of Preslava’s music for me and I have been listening to it ever since.

One of Plovdiv’s sights that you won’t find mentioned in the guidebooks would be its eye-candy. Yes, I’m talking girls. Apparently the city has outlawed fat cells and passed some legislation requiring that all women dress as if they are going to the disco. I have never seen a larger collection of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition bodies in one place in my life; all scantily clad, and all parading the streets in heels, little skirts flipping back and forth with a Shakira-style hook of the hips. I don’t know how men even concentrate. Standing out on my balcony at 8am Monday morning, I watched a striking blonde prance down the street. She was wearing stiletto white heels, a backless white dress that plunged in the front to her navel with one of those undercut skirts popular today bouncing so high as it swung back and forth you could almost make out the ‘smile’ that separated her butt cheeks from her thighs. I guess she was on her way to work at a dentist’s office, dressed in white as she was. I’ve truly never seen anything like it. The entire town is a catwalk.

My days in Plovdiv were pleasant and meandering. Sunday I spent just hanging out with Emma and Mark, other travelers I had met at the hostel. I rarely have “hang out” days while traveling but I happily set aside the guilt that follows me if I am not either writing or exploring and just enjoyed their company, splitting delectable ice-cream desserts that could feed an army, drinking beers and eating cold chips at the concert, guessing which Cyrillic entry on the menu matched which picture of food, and chatting about life and travel and, of course, Couchsurfing. They both signed up profiles in our days together and are hopefully on their way now to amazing new couchsurfing experiences like mine with Orlin and Ralitza.

My last night in Plovdiv, I climbed to the top of the Hill of the Liberators. The local girl at the hostel had explained to me that it was tradition every year after secondary school graduation, and a night of drinking and dancing at the discos, to climb the hill in the morning to watch the sunrise. She laughed, recounting how many people passed out on the side of the hill, never making it to the top. The hill was blessedly abandoned the night I climbed it, though I kept imagining the trees rustling with the sound of drunken laughter and the paths strewn with passed out adolescents celebrating their single moment at the top of the hill of life before plunging down to find their path into the future.

It was an apropos ending, standing upon the hill looking out on the city below, layered with the passage of time, in the place where the young look forward into tomorrow. Time rolls on, as must I….

The Ties That Bind

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Friday, June 21, 2007

I often wonder what it is that brings people together. Is it destiny? Chance? Timing? Chemistry? Why does it sometimes take years to open the door to our hearts and sometimes only seconds? Do we recognize others from lives we have lived before? Or does the universe simply bless us with love we need when we open to the possibility of its blessing? I have had so many serendipitous encounters these last two years - places where I opened the door and knew I belonged, knew I was with people I would come to love. Friendships have been forged in moments that have gone on to span thousands of miles and dozens of months.

I will never forget Antonella’s soft soothing voice, like cold hands on a feverish face, telling me when I was in the middle of a near nervous breakdown that I should come to Ascoli Piceno. She was a stranger across an ocean but something in her voice compelled me to go. She became one of the most precious people in the world to me, more precious than she will ever understand. Shellen’s email too called me. I already had a host in New York but changed plans to go to Shellen’s place instead. I opened the door to a sense of coming home, not knowing at the time it would actually become my home. She was my soul sister. We knew it the moment we met.

It was a spur of the moment decision to go to Sofia. An unplanned, luck of the draw choice, thanks to a google search and a cheap flight on an airline named, of all things, Wizzair. Who wants to fly with a company that would come up with that name? It was last minute so I only sent three surf requests out. One was to a family new to the site. They had no references, having not yet hosted or surfed. Though it is of course risky, I will sometimes surf a new host, knowing it can be difficult for them to get a first surfer.

It was actually their wedding picture that convinced me to send the request. It was a candid shot, as Orlin reached out for Ralitza’s hand. There was such genuineness in their eyes, such love for each other. I closed the pictures and sent the request. Within hours they had responded, offering not only to host me, but to pick me up from the airport. The airport to the host or hostel is generally one of the hardest parts of traveling. You don’t know the country or the language or how anything works; taxis are overpriced and after hours in lines and a pressurized tin can, negotiating mass transit while toting all your possessions is the last thing you want to do. An offer to be picked up personally at the airport, in a car, is like manna from heaven to someone on the road.

I knew Orlin immediately, though he was even larger than he appeared in his photo. A giant of a man – tall, broad, heavyset, and balding. If I didn’t see the twinkle in his eye, I’d be scared of him. But oh what a twinkle he has in his eye! He is the proverbial big teddy bear. He looks like he could crush you with one finger but is a lot more likely to crush you by hugging you too tight. Ralitza had run to the restroom. She came gliding across the terminal just as Orlin and I turned. She too I knew instantly. Long amber hair cascading to her waist in a light wave. She was wearing a beautiful black blouse of chiffon that danced with her every movement. Her spirit was light and sparkling, twirling almost, while her stride was strong and grounded. I liked them both instantly.

We chatted on the way home. Ralitza relying mostly on Orlin’s English though it would turn out she could express herself just fine. They had left work to meet me at the airport and had an important meeting they had to return to so we only chatted awhile at the house. I made the mistake of answering that yes, I was a little bit hungry, before I went to the bathroom. I returned bare seconds later to a table half covered with food – rice, sweet Bulgarian beans, pork, yogurt, muesli, milk, an apple, a tin of chocolates and they were still pulling things out of the fridge! I had to beg them to stop. They gave me keys, apologizing all the way out the door that they had to leave, and told me to call if I needed anything, and left me to settle in and get comfortable (it took me two hours to eat all the food!)

That night I had arranged to meet Rositsa and her surfers for a stroll through Sofia. Orlin and Ralitza had insisted on returning home to drive me to my meeting and were all but frantic when the business meeting kept them late. On top of that, the baby was running a fever. Still when I came home that night there was another full meal waiting for me. We talked into the early hours of the morn about Bulgaria and America, sharing stories of our lives while little two year old Angel and his big brother, Vlady, played around and with us.

Vlady is a beautiful boy; eight years old with deep, dark almost black eyes, black like olives they say in Bulgaria. He was proud to speak what little English he could and would patiently sound out words in Bulgarian for me. The instant bond only grew stronger through the days that followed. Angel has curly, red hair like his mother but the same deep dark eyes like Vlady and the most expressive little face. We communicated with smiles and funny faces, language being beyond the grasp of us both. They are both such well-behaved boys. Orlin is a devoted father, filled with love for both boys, and Ralitza a great mother. She gives her boys strong, present love but not too much coddling – one of the hardest balances for us as mothers. You’ve heard the phrase Kodak Moment? Their family is so beautiful together, virtually every moment is a Kodak moment. I took hundreds of pictures of them while I was there.

Tuesday I was off with Rositsa and her surfers for a day trip. I returned again to an incredible home cooked Bulgarian meal – salads galore (Bulgarians love their salads), potatoes, veggies, meat in a delectable hearty but light sauce. Another surfer, Loic, had joined us. A Frenchman living in Romania, he was on his way to Istanbul and would just stay the night. He went off to do computer work while Orlin washed dishes, laughing his big hearty laugh as he watched Ralitza, Vladi, Angel and I dance to Bulgarian MTV. It was a beautiful, fun, family evening – much like the crazy nights I remember with Mike and the kids when they were little when we would kick off our shoes, dancing, swinging, tickling, and laughing the night away. Such beautiful memories and the moments of my life I miss the most….

Ralitza is a musician, one of only two women in Bulgaria who plays the Kaval, a traditional instrument found throughout Bulgaria, Turkey, and parts of the middle east that dates back to the Egyptians. She had lived in London a few months working as a street performer and thus learned her English. She is an amazing woman. Beautiful long hair, twinkling eyes, a womanly body, the vivaciousness of a five year old with the business mind of a maverick and the understated sex appeal of Penelope Cruz in

‘Vanilla Sky’. I realized as I watched her how much she reminded me of Victor Hugo’s Esmeralda.

Wednesday they took me to their office. They run an advertising agency together that is becoming quite successful. They are immersed in a huge exhibition for the Plastic Surgery Convention next year. Plastic surgery, of all things, is one of Bulgaria’s biggest booming industries. Their big coup is a diplomatic ball which will be held in October. As he showed me around the lovely, well designed and technologically impressive office, Orlin told me how he had fallen in love with Ralitza when she was a street performer. It was love at first sight for them both and they were married in short order. Orlin laughed his big hearty laugh as he told me he thought he would be supporting Ralitza, the poor little street performer girl raised in an orphanage. Much to his surprise she turned out to be an exceptional saleswoman and skilled business manager. He looked at her with both admiration and adoration as he explained that the new car, the new office, the plastic surgeon’s account, everything was thanks to her brains, wits, and go-get-em determination.

Next to the advertising agency office is the internet café Orlin opened just before meeting Ralitza – the first internet café in Sofia. Outside was an actual café with beer and food and coffee, a fountain, and little umbrella covered picnic tables scattered around tree lined green space. The offices were part of an underground passage way that opened to the café, creating a lovely reprieve from the bustling street just above. I spent the day there happily writing until dinner time.

For dinner they took me to a beautiful restaurant high on a hill overlooking the city of Sofia below. Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria, about the size of Charlotte with a population of 1.2 million. The outskirts reflect the abuse and decay of communism but the downtown area is an architecturally diverse thriving political center where Sofia’s importance in days past shines brightly in the glistening sun and off the yellow bricks that make up the King’s Road – a gift from Vienna in Sofia’s heyday. From our perch above you could see how far the city sprawled beyond its pristine center.

Dinner was amazing. Whenever possible I ask others to order for me when I am traveling. I try not even to look at the menu. When you order for yourself, you will tend toward the familiar things you know you like. When others order, you try things you might never have considered. Orlin did an awesome job ordering. I couldn’t tell you what all I ate, but I can sure tell you it was all good. We ate and laughed and talked, bonding over good food and special company.

Thursday was another road trip with Rositsa and a late night with fellow couchsurfers, one of whom was headed to Plovdiv Saturday. Orlin, Ralitsa and I had already planned a road trip with the kids to Plovdiv on Friday so I decided I would stay there Friday night to meet up in Plovdiv on Saturday. Part of me really didn’t want to leave, but I was too comfortable and knew I would linger too long. It was time to get on the road. I tentatively asked Orlin over coffee if it was okay if I stayed in Plovdiv. His deep voice resounded in the room. “NO!” I actually thought he was mad for a moment. Then his face softened, “It is not okay, we are going to miss you.”

As I was packing my bag, Ralitza walked in. “I want you to have these,” she said, extending her hand. The first day I was there I had admired the earrings she was wearing. Not earrings actually, but ear hoops that hook around the back of your ears, with long drop chains studded with pearl pieces and crystals. She handed them to me. “No.” I told her. “I can’t. You bought these in London, they are special, it is too much.” “That is what makes a true gift,’ she replied. “Something special to you that you give to someone special to you.” She placed them in my hand. Tears pooled in our eyes though neither of us let them fall as we hugged each other in the knowing embrace of friends who will see each other again. I will cherish those forever.

Our last day together was easy and soft like a spring day despite the sweltering summer heat. A tender, precious sharing of final moments – savored like a decadent dessert shared with a good friend. We lunched at an open air restaurant while the kids played on the playground next to it. We had water fights in the fountains and with the water gun the restaurant had given Vlady. The call came while we were at the restaurant that they would have the backing of a very high diplomat for the upcoming ball. Ralitza did a jig right there in the restaurant – she was so beautiful and happy she reminded me of Miss America the moment she is announced the winner. We ate ice-cream walking down the pedestrian avenue that leads to old town, as Angel ran ahead. His shoes had long ago gone to the wayside, as had his shirt and the pants would soon follow. Everyone smiled watching this little diapered cherub run barefoot down the walk before us.

Then Raliza tied the final knot between us. She reached down and took of her shoes there in the middle of the crowded, public walkway. Those who know me know I abhor shoes. I never wore them around my neighborhood in Charlotte. I was granted an exception to the no bare feet rule at Starbucks by the general manager. It was a moniker of sorts. The neighborhood knew it was spring when Sherry was running around barefooted again. When Ralitza slipped off her shoes in the center of town, I knew we were bonded forever. I’m usually self-conscious to go barefoot in foreign countries. Some places it is insulting and I try never to be the oblivious obnoxious traveling American. It didn’t take long for the envy to out weigh the self-consciousness. Ralitza laughed as I joined her barefooted delight. “Now we are not crazy. Wherever there is at least two, there is sanity.” A policeman stopped Ralitza and said something in Bulgarian. I thought he would scold us but in fact he was a comrade. “Don’t the stones feel good under bare feet?” he had asked her. Oh yes, they did. We crested the hill of the old town looking out over the ancient Roman amphitheatre that is still functioning today. It felt so good, walking these stones laid thousands of years ago side by side with a woman I had met days before but felt like I had known for lifetimes. Perhaps we did walk these streets together in Roman days long ago. We sat looking out over the amphitheatre drinking our cokes. Words could not be found and did not need to be spoken.

Night was falling when we returned to the car. They had insisted on helping me find a hostel and then on driving as close as possible so Orlin could carry my pack the rest of the way. I hugged Ralitza goodbye at the car, again holding back the tears. I kissed Angel, closing my eyes to inhale his soft baby smell. Orlin and Vlady walked me to the room. Orlin gave me a big bear hug making me promise to call if I had any trouble and to let them know where I would be. I assured him I would then turned to little Vlady. He was standing quietly next to us, eyes downcast. I picked him up and held him tight. He hung in my arms like a potato sack. He didn’t know how to tell me good-bye to say what he felt. He could only show me he was sad. The last hour of the day when he knew I would soon leave, he would look up at me every few minutes, his dark, almost-black eyes penetrating mine and would whisper with the deepest intent the only English word he know that expressed feeling, “Thank you”. He whispered it again now in my ear as I squeezed him tight and set him back on the ground. When they left, I raced to the window to watch them down the street until they disappeared from sight. Vlady’s small hand lost in Orlin’s big grasp as he shuffled along beside his father. The tears fell silently down my cheeks, as they are falling now while I write this. I will miss them so much, my little Bulgarian family…

Postscript…

Three days later I decided in Plovdiv to send a small box back to Italy. My budget includes sending computer disc backups home every three weeks as a precaution, along with whatever brochures and things I have acquired on the road. My pack still weighed in at 15 kilos and I was going through it once again to see if there was anything I could take out and ship back. In the stack of brochures and matchbooks was the little vintage licorice tin I had bought in the airport in Rome. I can’t stand licorice but loved the design on the small inch by inch tin and had the strongest compulsion that I would need it to store some small thing on the road. Tossing the tin in my hand a couple times, I put it in the box to ship back. It was not necessary. Two minutes later I removed it again, saying to myself, ‘There is some reason you bought it, you will find it useful for something, keep it until you know what you bought it for.’

The next day I was packing to leave for Burgas. As I tenderly picked up my dangling ear hoops to pack with my other jewelry I realized they would tangle and possibly break if put them loosely in the little jewelry bag. I began searching for something to wrap them in or a safe place to tuck them away. I was exasperated, finding nothing. They were too precious to my heart to risk damaging. Suddenly the image of the tin flooded my mind. I opened the pack, scrambling to retrieve it from the bottom of the zipper bag I had placed it in. I opened it and carefully lay the hoops inside. They fit, perfectly. It was as if the box had been made specifically for them, a box I bought waiting for the plane that would take me to meet the woman who had gifted them to me. So you tell me. What is it that brings people together? Is it Destiny? Chance? Desire? Or just the soft sweet smile of Lady Luck?

The Hostess With The Mostest!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

My writing on my time in Sofia would not be complete without a hats off to Rositsa – truly the Hostess With The Mostest! She was one of only three CS requests I sent to Sofia. From her profile I could see she was an interesting lady, my age, quite active in the CS community, and a published writer to boot. I knew I would enjoy meeting her. She wrote me that unfortunately she already had two surfers and could not host me. A few hours later she wrote again, offering the other bed in her own room if I didn’t mind sharing a room. After spending several days with her, I would safely bet she would give someone the shirt of her back if they needed it. I told her I would stay with the family that had accepted my request and we agreed instead to meet for a tour of Sofia along with her other surfers the night I arrived.

I stepped out of the taxi before the imposing Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It sits all alone in the middle of a vast concrete plane that separates it by a fair distance from the major roads and market-filled garden areas that surround it. Standing on the steps before this sea of concrete were Rositsa, Eldad, and Evan. Rositsa tossed me a cheery wave and a bright smile as I got out of the cab. I shook hands all around taking in my new companions.

Rositsa was my age, about my height, a little heavier set, with penetrating though bright eyes and short hair. Well, not short exactly, short to her shoulders but lots of it. It seemed like hair that wanted to stay a step ahead of her, to explore, as did her mind and the rest of her. She is a speech therapist and spends time both teaching and working with orphans. Her heart is as open as her mind and when she discovered CS it was love at first sight. In the ten months since she joined, she has hosted dozens of people. A testament to both her inexhaustible hosting and impressive intelligence, she learned English in those ten little months entirely from her CS interactions. She has not taken classes or even traveled to an English speaking country and yet has excellent comprehension and communication skills. For those of you who have not learned a foreign language as adults, that is impressive!

Evan was a young man, just 21, tall but not lanky, with rag doll like movements and the kind of eyes a young girl wants to crawl into forever. He reminded me a bit of Ethan Hawke in the movie Before Sunrise. He attempted to hide his age, and perhaps nervousness, behind a stream of chatter which dissipated through our time together as his comfort grew. He spoke with an accent I never could place, though he was born and raised in California. He claimed he picked up the accent from his three months in Germany, though I wondered through our time together if it was an accent he had intentionally cultivated. Regardless, it gave his voice an unusual and pleasing tonal quality. Evan had an impressive story for a man of just 21 years of age. I would come to be quite taken with him as a person when I later learned what had brought him to the road.

Eldad, was older, 34, from Israel. Everything about him was chiseled - his jaw, his facial features, his personality and sense of humor. He had sharp green eyes that could strike or seduce without shifting either emotion or another part of his expression. A geo-political tour guide in Jerusalem, he was well-educated, well-informed, and quick to judge others if they were not. Yet there was some soft spot within him, some desire for connection that constantly eluded his quick-slice interactions with the world. He could not understand how I kept in contact with so many of my hosts and those I have met on the road. I could not understand how he had hosted and been hosted dozens of times and not kept in touch with anyone. In the pictures he posed for he always looked hard, composed. In the candids there was a wistfulness in his eyes that never showed in his personality. But his intelligence was captivating, his wit keen, and an undeniable undercurrent of strength in his character – all qualities I admire.

The road makes fast friends and we were chatting easily before we had stepped off Nevsky’s concrete sea to the grass area beyond where the last of the antiques from the street market were being packed away. I would later walk through the market when it was open, astounded by the variety of war paraphernalia – Russian medals next to German ones next to Turkish, drinking flasks, uniform badges, military hats, everything you could imagine. It really brought home the upheavals caused by history that we as Americans are blessedly and unknowingly so oblivious to.

Rositsa was trying to explain Sofia history between Evan’s excited chatter and constant questions. He had the boundless energy of a pup, skipping ahead of me as he talked, turning back to ask this question or that. You could tell he had worn Rositsa out a bit with his eagerness but I found him absolutely endearing. Eldad was the quieter one, silently assessing me and my value as an American. I find out more and more how little most of the world thinks of us as a people. It is always a shock to me to find a new country that is prejudiced against us. Looking at us from the other side of the world though, I do understand. We have more, use more, get more than any other people in the world and yet we complain more and do less (in terms of staying informed or effecting change) than most cultures, at least that I have seen. It is a paradox that persistently perplexes me.

Evan seemed to sense he was causing tension in his host and dropped back a bit in the conversation. He reminded me of a pup who had lost its bone to its bigger brothers, which only served to accentuate my fondness for him. We did a short walking tour of Sofia, admiring the grand architecture along the glorious King’s Road – the original yellow brick road paved in 1917 with bricks gifted to the city by Vienna. An address on the King’s Road, Rositsa explained, was a sign of wealth and posterity. We passed the lovely Church of St. Nikolai with its gilded onion domes, the National Art Gallery, and numerous other buildings of notable architecture. After the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878 and the establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian monarchy with its capital in Sofia, notable architects were invited from Austria and Hungary to give the new capital a worthy appearance. This effort resulted in quite the impressive “neo-mix” – new-Baroque, Neo-Rococo, and Neo-Renaissance, with a little Neoclassicism thrown in. Given the dilapidated communist concrete block apartment houses that stretch as far as the eye can see outside downtown, the center is a pleasant and unexpected display of architectural beauty.

The boys ran off to see if they could acquire a map leaving Rositsa and I to chat a few minutes. For reasons beyond me, Bulgarians are very stingy with their map making. It is impossible to find tourist maps in the small towns. Not even the hotels have them, nor do the tourist agencies. You can buy a huge big fold out map, all made by the same company, at any news stand for any town for five lev. Considering a pack of cigarettes costs less than one lev. five lev for a map is highway robbery, excuse the pun.

We continued our walk, strolling the trolley street, passing the daily book market, admiring the National Theatre, and the highly-touted ethnographical museum. Every city in Bulgaria boasts its own ethnographical museum, an English word I had never heard before coming here. According to the dictionary, it is a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures. My guess is it is more like a subdivision of our natural history museums though I didn’t explore any to find out. As the sun was setting, Rositsa led us down a narrow alley and through a small opening that led into a lovely lattice and vine roofed beer garden. It is one of the many advantages of couchsurfing, being in the company of locals who know the quaint hidden restaurant, the best pub in town, or the most happening disco. We settled into a table by the cool stone wall. Rositsa ordered an array of Bulgarian tastes as we drank beer and got to know one another.

I was most taken with Evan’s story. He spent his life grossly overweight. At 19 he weighed in at over 300 pounds, passing the days of his adolescence in his parents’ basement playing video games and wondering about girls. It was hard to believe looking at him that such an attractive, vibrant young man had immerged from a 300 pound sloth. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Eldad who responded, “It’s true, I’ve seen the pictures.” Over the next day together I would occasionally glimpse the overweight, outcast, young man hiding in the dark inside this outgoing, easy, attractive man embracing life in the faraway look that overtook him when he spoke of his past. He told me that one day he decided he had had enough. He set his mind to lose the weight and did. When he found couchsurfing, he gathered up a little cash and set off for the other side of the Atlantic to see the world and learn how to interact with the people in it. He makes the admirable habit of staying with a different host every night. “Ah, it is an important responsibility, entertaining one’s host” he says, in his strange accent with twinkling eyes. For him, time spent with his host is the most important thing, the sights and monuments are secondary.

I admired and envied this young man who at 21 years of age had given himself the gift of empowerment. Too many people spend their lives living the words “I have to” and “I can’t,” never learning that underneath the “have to”s are choices and desires and underneath the “I can’t”s are needs and fears. Evan decided what he wanted and made it happen. One day I hope to cross his path again and see where he has taken life for I’m sure he will ride life rather than letting life ride him.

It was nearly 11pm when Rositsa won the struggle for the check, as she would almost always do over the next few days. We hailed a taxi and headed our separate directions having planned to meet again in the morning for a day trip into the mountains of Bulgaria.

We were off early the next morning, stopping first at one of the “garage bars” that fill the streets of Sofia for coffee and pastries. Rositsa explained that there was once a shortage of space and so people began converting actual car garages into small cafes and bars. They are rustic little delights, with old antiques hanging on the walls and tables scattered around the sidewalk out front, and burly old men serving juice and coffee and beer.

By 10am we were on the road, Rositsa and her boyfriend, Emil, up front, me in the middle between Eldad and Evan in the back. The boys had already met and developed an obvious fondness for Emil. He was, to me, the quintessential Bulgarian with a thick graying mustache set in a square-shaped face, and intense, intelligent eyes that looked at you with kindness from beneath bushy brown eyebrows. He reminded me of a movie supporting actor, the unexpected good-ole-boy who figures out the mystery and shows up in the nick of time to save the protagonist. He never went more than an hour without a beer or five minutes without a cigarette. Eldad was obviously taken with his intelligence and Evan with his kindness.

As the car wound its way alongside the Balkan mountains for which this peninsula is named and into Sredna Gora, Eldad, Evan and I slipped into a jovial conversation about traveling and couchsurfing. Before long we were teasing each other, querying who had hooked up with who, where and whether the other had surfed a bed instead of a couch. Couchsurfing protocol is that it is not to be used as a dating site. But of course people are people and when they are attracted, they are attracted. With our admitted follies, the ice was thoroughly broken between us three. For the rest of the day the conversation slipped repeatedly into sexual innuendo, discussion, and joking, much to the entertainment of Emil. I felt like I was back in middle school, those days when you could erupt into giggles with your friends over any word that a mere raise of the eyebrows could somehow twist into a sexual innuendo. It was fun verbal play, light and easy. Such camaraderie on the road is one of the precious gifts of traveling.

Emil and Rositsa interrupted our casual banter to tell us about the Valley of the Roses as we were passing through it. As the name suggests, the region is filled with roses, boasting over 14,000 square miles of lush, beautifully scented Rosa Damascena (Damask Rose). The height of the season had passed before us yet there was still a soft scent of rose in the air. The festival of the roses has been celebrated for nearly a hundred years during the mass harvesting that takes place in villages like Karlovo and Kasanluk. Traditionally dressed boys and girls dance and perform folk songs and music, miming the process of harvesting the rose flowers and extracting the famous Bulgarian rose oil. There is not a tourist shop in Bulgaria that does not proffer a fine selection of rose scented bath products and the intricately painted or carved wooden trinkets that contain a small vile of the precious oil. It is not only a tourist trinket, but has been a major industry since the 17^th century. Bulgaria is the second largest producer of rose oil in the world. One ton of rose oil is exported annually, mostly to perfumery and cosmetic companies in France, Germany and the USA. Pretty impressive when you consider it takes 3000 kg of rose petals to distill just one kg of rose oil!

After the Valley of Roses we came to our first stop, the little town of Koprivshtitsa. Set in a hollow in the heart of Sredna Gora with a population of just 3,200, it has been declared a museum town, a historical preserve, and a national architectural preserve of international significance with almost 400 architectural monuments from the Bulgarian Renaissance. The houses were lovely and varied though I was most taken with the almost round stone bottomed houses on which sat a second story of beautiful deep dark wood. Sometimes the wood was painted with beautiful designs or in vivid colors. The town claims the heritage of several great men from Bulgaria’s history and numerous homes have been converted to museums.

We wandered through the cobblestone streets snapping photos at every turn. Evan, who is traveling on the tail end of a shoe string, bought what he thought was a sweet honey and was sad to discover was a regional specialty made from attar of roses. It is the taste and texture of extraordinarily sweet cake icing. Though we were eating it by the spoonfuls, it is actually intended to be used as a drink. A small dollop slipped into a glass of water creates a sweet, slightly rose scented drink. I actually think it would have been wonderful in coffee though I never did get to try it.

Rositsa and Emil are both fountainheads of information on the history and folklore of Bulgaria and shared their knowledge with us as we strolled leisurely through the quaint and surprisingly empty village. As we passed a wild, leafy plant, Rositsa plucked a stem telling me it was their plant of good health and fertility. It is worn in the springtime by men seeking mates. Rositsa explained that in times past, if a married woman was unable to get pregnant, her mother in law would arrange lovers for her. The woman would wear the leaf through town indicating she was, for lack of better terms, available and ripe. Men approved by the mother in law would come to her that night wearing wolves masks (to keep their identity secret) and bed her. She might have five to ten lovers in one night. (hmmm…) On the other side of the folklore spectrum, if a woman’s bedsheets were without blood stains on her wedding night she would be placed on a donkey backward and stoned to death (doesn’t seem fair to the donkey). Ironically, anal sex was not considered a de-virginizing act so young women in love or lust could have a little “back door” fun without the worry of being stoned to death. Quite the array of conflicting moral standards by our Puritanical and Victorian mores!

We stopped at the end of our little town tour for a snack at a charming little café. Bulgaria is overflowing with cafes that boast wooden picnic tables on astroturf-covered patios shaded by large umbrellas sponsored by the big beer companies, namely Kamenitza and Zagorka. Our tummies satisfied by the light snack, we headed back on the road, stopping by a Roman ruin on the way to Hissarya, a town known for its mineral springs and spas. It was a lovely town, fairly wealthy, with parks and fountains where residents walk every morning to collect the waters from the fountains for whatever it is that is ailing them. We settled at another little café for beer and coffee and ice-cream and lingered in the afternoon setting sun.

The two hour drive back to Sofia flew by as we wound our way through the mountains, sharing stories from our past and admiring the quaint countryside with its rickety homes and horse drawn carts. We dropped Evan back in Sofia where he was meeting a new host for the night with tight hugs and promises to keep in touch.

On Thursday, Rositsa, Emil, Eldad, and I met up again, this time for a road trip in the opposite direction to Rila monastery, Bulgaria’s most popular tourist sight. Emil entertained us with translations of the names of towns we drove through – “under the dick” “woman’s hole” “frog’s croak” and our beer-break town called “cleaning up the ram poop.” Hmmm, makes you wonder about the Bulgarian sense of humor. “Cleaning up the ram poop” was a small and dilapidated town but not without a certain charm with its fading color washed houses, each crowned by one or more storks’ nests. After leaving the town, we crossed a large plain then found ourselves winding upward to Rila mountain.

The monastery sits in the heart of the Rila Mountains under the watchful eye of Mousala, the highest peak, and at 2,925 meters, the highest point on the Balkan peninsula. The monastery is believed to have been founded by a hermit, John of Rila, in the 10^th century and has enjoyed great respect and privileges ever since it was established. The residential buildings, containing over 300 monks’ cells, form a closed irregular quadrangle creating an inner courtyard in which rises an impressive stone tower aside a breathtakingly beautiful five domed church painted with glorious renditions of biblical stories in bright, vivid colors. Sunlight glistens off the gold domes and bright paintings but the beauty of the outside does not begin to prepare one for the opulent interior. I walked, mouth agape, through the shafts of falling sunlight, amazed by iconography, the rich wood and golden glow emanating from every direction.

Another beer at a little café at Rila, after all it had been more than an hour since the last one, and we were back on the road. Perhaps it was the influence of the oddly named towns we were driving through or the middle-school banter with Evan the day before or just one of those suspended moments in time between travelers – whatever the cause, the innuendo talk unexpectedly transformed into an out and out flirtation between Eldad and I, making for quite the scintillating ride to and from Rila monastery as we teasingly ate cherries and shared a few discreet kisses. I must say it was the most fun I have ever had in the backseat of a moving car! Our paths would part before the teasing could be properly consumated, but it sure made for a great memory and a permanent photo in the Sherry archives.

It was evening when we returned to Sofia. We parted ways with Emil, thanking him for his kindness, and made our way to the couchsurfing party in town. Rositsa was the mother hen at a table filled with beautiful young ladies and two men. As I looked around the table I was struck by the fact that not one of the women at the table looked anything alike although each had some element of striking beauty about them. I never did spot a common characteristic among the Bulgarian women except their long-waisted and very womanly bodies. We drank beer and chatted the evening away until the group had dwindled to a handful. The last of us made our way to a live music bar where a Jamaican band played Bob Marley and Red Hot Chili Peppers while we danced the night away. I was about half lit when I stumbled out of the taxi and managed only a half hug to Rositsa from the back seat. I will have to return one day to give her the hug she deserves for her amazing generosity and kindness of spirit and for showing me so much of the beauty that is Bulgaria. Thank you Rositsa. You are indeed the Hostess with the Mostest!

Bulgarian Hospitality

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June 21, 2007

I remember Boshidar. A short, stout man, rather non-descript, with the work ethic of a master mason and the heart of a silent suffering saint. His accent was so thick I could barely understand him. Not having yet traveled or learned the frustration of new languages and cultures, I despair to think how impatient I was with his efforts to communicate. I knew he was from Bulgaria, wherever that was. Fifteen years ago if you had narrowed the map down to Eastern Europe alone, I still couldn’t have pointed to Bulgaria.

Boshidar worked for my mother’s photographic lab and was one of the most dedicated, devoted employees she ever had. He had a cat named Rocky who he adored; actually adored isn’t a strong enough word. He lived for Rocky. I remember him telling me how Rocky would kick him out of the bed at night. A cat. Kicking a fifty year hold, stocky man out of bed. Imagine. We used to laugh about how Rocky ruled the house, never really thinking about the man who had no one else with whom to share his overflowing love and generosity.

He loved soccer perhaps almost as much as he loved Rocky. He saved his money for years to go to the World Cup. He had to buy a suitcase to carry back all the souvenirs he brought for the other employees of the lab. He even brought a soccer jersey for me and one for my son, just four years old at the time. I can’t imagine how much money he spent on all the gifts he brought. The lab was decked in World Cup paraphernalia for years to come.

Boshi, as we used to call him, died a few years ago. He had no one in America; no one but Rocky. One of his co-workers, concerned when Boshi did not show up for work, found him dead in his own bed with Rocky watching over him next to him. It was my mother who saw to his funeral arrangements. We never knew his story, what he had suffered or why he had come to America. He never talked about his past. Despite the fact he was always kind and smiling, he seemed to have no life, no friends outside the job he devoted day and night to.

Boshi always wanted to take me and my mother out to dinner. I would dread it but I would go, mostly for my mom, partly for some immature pity that only twenty-somethings can feel when they look on people who have actually lived a life and think they are in any position to judge where that life has brought those people to. I remember that Boshi would always pay the bill, when we went out, always. No matter how my mom and I tried to get the bill from him, he always won. Mom and I are both pretty stubborn and rarely lose a dinner-check war, but she never won against Boshi.

Little did I know then that this is the Bulgarian way. They are the most gracious, generous, giving people I have met. Wrestling a bill from their grasp when they are your host is virtually impossible. It does not matter to them that their average monthly salary is less than Americans spend on a oak-walled steakhouse dinner, what matters is you are their guest and hosts take care of their guests.

Rositsa, one of Couchsurfing’s most active members, already had two surfers with her when she received my request to surf her couch in Sofia. She explained, apologetically, that I could have the other bed in her room if I didn’t mind sharing a room. I received her kind offer the same time that Orlin and Ralitza emailed that their family could host me. Not wanting to put Rositsa out, I accepted their offer. But that wasn’t the last of Rositsa. Not only did she meet me the night I arrived to show me around town with her two surfers, but she took me under her wing for the rest of the week, driving us Tuesday to see the charming town of Koprivshtitsa and then all the way down to Rila to see Bulgaria’s largest monastery on Thursday. Her boyfriend, Emil, joined us for both road trips. Between the two of them, and the fact we couldn’t argue in Bulgarian, they always managed to snag the check. At one point, the other surfers and I had to stand at the table and all but threaten physical abuse if they didn’t let us pay for something. Their generosity in the time they shared with us, the insight into their country, and their spirit, not to mention food and beer, was amazing.

And then there was my new Bulgarian family. I cried when I parted ways with Orlin and Ralitza in Plovidv. It was the first time leaving a host truly broke my heart. From the moment they picked me up at the airport, half an hour from their home, to the moment Orlin placed my pack, that he had insisted on carrying, in my room at the hostel, they were the kindest, most genuine, generous, caring family that I have ever met. They cooked for me, took me to special places to eat, shared their home and their business, their hopes for the future, the joy from an important success that happened while I was there, their children, their trust, and their love. I will never understand how life blesses me with such beautiful people.

When I left the states, I asked around where Boshi was from so I could pay my respects to his homeland on his behalf. No one knew for sure. I don’t know if anyone had ever asked. I lit a candle at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia to wish him well on his journey, wherever he may be now, and to tell him I was sorry for not being more patient, not doing more to see the man inside, not caring enough to connect. As the candle burned, I cried tears of regret for having been so impatient with an immigrant’s fumbling English and unknowable past. Now, I am the foreigner, forever in strange lands, who relies on the patience and kindness of others. I deeply wish I had given Boshi even just a fraction of the acceptance and consideration when he was in my country that his countrymen have given me in theirs. If spirits hear our hearts, I hope he knows somewhere that he is loved and missed.

All Roads Lead to Rome (and hopefully back again!)

Sunday, June 17, 2007

I stood leaning against the adobe wall of the terrace looking out over the azure blue of the Tyrrhenian sea; a glass of wine in my hand, the chatter of five intelligent, kind, open-minded, attractive men behind me (the kind of men women lament they can’t find), and thanked again my lucky stars to be born in the age of the internet and to have discovered couchsurfing. Four days ago I had no idea I would even be in Rome. Now I had new friends in Rome I couldn’t wait to meet again one day. What did it take to make this happen? An idea, a $15 bus ticket, an open mind, and couchsurfing.

Thursday morning it struck me in Ascoli that for reasons unknown I simply did not want to start this trip in Croatia. I had been dragging my feet about buying the ferry ticket. At first, I knew it was a simple need to decompress and breathe again. To put away the ‘work and worry’ world and pick up again the backpack and the open, easy spirit that comes with it. But I had decompressed, and even bought a new back pack with an upgrade in the easy spirit accessory, and still I had not left. Sure I was working all day, getting computer work done, taking care of the items at the bottom of the to do list that you never think you will get to, but I wasn’t leaving and it was time to go.

So Thursday morning, I walked into the Accademia Italiana office in San Benedetto where my guardian angel Antonella lets me work, turned on the computer, and spent about twenty minutes searching through airfares to eastern Europe from Milan and Rome. An airline I hadn’t heard of came up on one of the searches – Wizzair. Hmmm… On the front page of the site, there it was, Rome to Sofia, Bulgaria – 30 euro. The ferry to Croatia was going to cost me 70. Not having a clue exactly where Sofia was, I checked out a map. It was well located to go up into Romania over to the Black Sea or west to Belgrade. I ran a quick couchsurf; there were plenty of couches. I bought the ticket. I could take the bus to Rome Sunday, couchsurf one night, then head out for the flight Monday morning.   

The first email was to Flavio. He is one of CS’s most active members, a global ambassador, well-connected in the community, and devoted to both the principled management of CS and the spirit of community and cultural exchange that is embodied in the CS philosophy. We know each other dozens of times over through other friends and have emailed for better than a year now, but we had never actually met. He couldn’t host, but suggested a friend and we made plans for Sunday afternoon to go to the beach. I got the unfortunate news that his friend couldn’t host me late Friday. I generally won’t send out requests two days in advance, but decided to send just two and if neither was available I’d crash at the airport.

Within two hours I had not one but two places to sleep. I wrote Giuseppe that I had already accepted Francesco’s invitation. He kindly suggested that we have lunch since he lived just five minutes from where the bus would drop me. In the serendipitous world that is couchsurfing, this worked perfectly since I would arrive at 12:30 but Francesco wouldn’t be able to meet me at his place until 3pm.

Thirty minutes after I got off the bus, I was sitting at the dining table, looking over the balcony at walls built almost 2,000 years ago as pasta cooked on the stove, drinking a wonderful Spumanti selected by a not only suave Italian but a sommelier to boot! Lunch was simple, quick, and to die for. I will never understand what makes the food so much better in this country. We chatted over spumanti, wine, and a wonderful berry liquor from Sardinia (or was it Sicily?) until it was time for him to take me back to the station. It was an unexpected kiss in the light of day, my head spinning slightly from the afternoon’s array of alcoholic delights, but it is terribly difficult to resist a kiss from a handsome Italian who just cooked you lunch, and why would you anyway?

I spent the bus ride to the other side of town watching the gypsy thieves communicate with the barest of gestures as they selected their next victim. I felt something awry from the man seated near the back of the bus when I boarded, and consciously chose the one seat at the back of the bus, behind the back door partition, that would make it impossible to access my bags from any direction. I then spent the 30 minute ride fascinated by the way they came on and off the bus, signaling their leader with the slightest raise of eyebrows or other gestures. They decided on two Italian tourists with backpacks and cameras but a priest on the bus saw the girls and warned them before the borseggiatori (pickpockets) could even make a move. All three got off at the next stop. There would be no work while he was on the bus.

It was quite the hike in the hot summer day from the bus to Francesco’s house. I would have been happy to see the devil himself open the door to a cool dark place where I could set my pack down. I don’t think Francesco even came into focus until I had splashed my face, drank a glass of water, and got my breathing back to normal. When the world came back into alignment I saw before me an incredibly handsome man with vivacious eyes, a bright smile, and a peaceful calm energy. Within moments our conversation went beyond ‘pasta small talk’ and to subjects of meaning. I had the strongest sensation that we had known each other for years and were catching up after not having seen each other for awhile. We lingered over our coffee, talking, laughing, emphasizing a point with a touch or intense intonation. I could have talked like that for days, but the hour and a half late I was to his house had now become three hours late to our rendezvous with Flavio.

Francesco insisted I take a moment to freshen up and take a shower. Showers are always delightful after long journeys, but this one was uniquely and particularly intoxicating, especially after my first trek with true trekker’s backpack. We finally made it out the door and were headed to Ostia Antiqua, a small port town just fifteen miles outside of Rome. I had run us so late that we skipped the beach and headed to meet Flavio at another CSer’s house. It took a little while for Flavio to warm up to me but by the end of the evening I think he decided I was okay after all. I can’t help but adore anyone who feels as strongly about CS as he does.

Within moments Denis had joined us. He is a wire-terrier of a man, boundless energy, and a tight body with light, bright eyes and a mischievous smile. He led us into the house and up to the rooftop terrace where his ‘bedroom’ was - a single free-standing room in the middle of the open terrace that looked out over the sea. The ‘shower’ was outside – one of those beachside type showers. Flavio and Denis were in mid-conversation when Denis stripped down to a little red Speedo and began to shower. We’re not talking a rinse-off here ladies. We are talking a full soap suds scrub down. It would have made one hot movie scene if there were a camera crew there to film it! 

There I was, the sea to my left, the sun setting over Rome to my right, and an Italian scrubbing himself down behind me as he chatted to one of the handsomest, nicest guys I’ve ever met and a man I admire and respect. Alright, does life get better? Hmm.. actually it does and did. I honestly tried not to watch but I finally couldn’t resist the urge to snap a photo – solely for the promotion of couchsurfing of course….

Denis had thankfully put some clothes on, allowing me to concentrate again and my face to return to a normal skin tone when new friends Fabrizio and Andrea arrived. Introductions were made as wine was poured and we sat around the table sharing stories of travels and CS experiences. Fabrizio, quiet and solid with inquisitive eyes, was new to the couchsurfing concept and admittedly amazed at the stories we had to tell. Andrea, tall and lean, the Italian version of the computer-smart type, had done some hospitality club but not CS.

As the sun set, hunger took over and we rallied to head out for pizza. I must admit I didn’t really understand why here on the outskirts of Rome where there must be more pizzerias per capita than anywhere in the world, we drove twenty five minutes and then stood almost an hour in the parking lot waiting for a table at this crowded little hole in the wall next to the Indian Fast Food place.

The first bite of pizza was all it took to understand. I would have happily waited three hours for that pizza, actually I think I’ve waited a whole lifetime for that pizza. Words simply cannot do it justice. It was an orgiastic, orgasmic tasting experience.

Nonno, as Denis called him, was great. He was il padrone, the owner - one of those hard-on-the-outside, teddy-bear-soft-on-the-inside sorts who you think is going to bite your head off right before he hugs you tight. I loved him instantly. The six of us laughed and talked the night away. By the end of the evening, there was not one part of my body that wasn’t fully satiated from the day’s experience. And THEN…. Nonno brought two huge, beautiful, amazing, sinful, decadent, died-and-gone-to-heaven dessert pizzas! Chocolate, whip cream, berries, and thick berry sauce all slipping and sliding atop a sweet thin crepe-like crust. I was making love to that pizza right there in front of all those guys. They knew it. I knew it. I could have cared less. I ate three pieces. Heaven is real. It is there at Gianluca Procaccini Pizza!

 

Nonno asked me how I liked it – I told him the only thing that could make the experience better was eating it while you were making love. He didn’t understand exactly what I said, but he knew exactly what I meant.

I had to wait while someone found the wheelbarrow to get me to the car. The guys were still laughing at my ecstatic delight over dessert. Nonno gave me a big hug, laughing too and declaring I was the first American he had ever hugged.

Ladies and gents if you are ever in Rome, hell if you are ever in Italy, you must find your way to this pizzeria.  It is Via delle Azzorree #344 in Ostia. Rent a car, hitchhike, sell your soul, do whatever you have to do, but get there. It will undoubtedly be one of the memories that flashes before your eyes when the heavens come a’callin’.

I gloried in my distended belly for the ride back to Denis' house. We all chatted for awhile before parting ways. By now Flavio had accepted me into the circle and gave me a warm, genuine hug goodbye. I was happy to finally be able to call him a friend and look forward to the day we can talk more about CS and life. It was well after 1am when Francesco started the car to head home.

Francesco and I talked the forty minute drive about the night and our new friends and  shared some of our stories from life. I was amazed again at the ease and familiarity between us – the sense of being old friends reunited rather than new ones just meeting. The few times such connections happen, I can’t help but wonder if we have met in another time and place, another life, another world.

A sound night’s sleep, morning coffee, Francesco’s personally drawn map in hand, and a simp le, sweet kiss goodbye and it was time for me to head out again.  If all roads do lead to Rome, I hope one leads me back to enjoy the company of the friends I made (and have some more of that damn PIZZA!). 

PS There are pics of the pizza delight in the Roma photo album to the right...  Warning, you will salivate.

Stolen Moments

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I took the first step. A shiver passed through me in the warm Italian sun. It was not cold. I was scared. Of someone following me? No. Of finding a place, being stranded, dying alone and unloved? No. I was scared of what was inside of me, or, more accurately, what wasn’t. It has been a week since I left American shores and I have not written one word. Sure I have opened the computer to write, but I have lingered over emails and CS profiles and whatever else I could justify doing until the open door of time slipped away. I have not written, not from the place where I must go, deep within myself to write.

I took the second step. “Why are you so scared,” I asked, myself. “What if I can’t?” I responded. “What if it is no longer there? What if I have no words to express what I see. Worse, what if I no longer see?” Such strange questions, really. “No longer see.” Do we reach a point where we no longer see? It looks to me as if many do – those who have dulled themselves through work or alcohol or mere habitual existence to the world around them until it seems there is only one dull grey world to know. Or maybe, that is just my perception. People tell me all the time I must be so brave to do what I do, live without a plan, a home, a safety net; travel the world with the freedom of the wind to go wherever I am called. They do not understand - that does not scare me; that is easy. It is the mediocrity of existence that scares me. How would I keep alive whatever this spirit is that is me chained in the redundancy of a formalized existence?

I continued to mount the stairs. So many voices, so many me-s, a cacophony rising in my mind. The scared self, the wise self, the confident self, the doubting self, the nag, the abuser, the victim, the woman, the lover, the unloved, the writer, all expressing their reasons why I should and should not continue. There were other things that needed doing. There always are. Even on the road. Even in a life without so-called responsibilities. In the every-day world my writer voice cannot stand up to the voice that demands. It asks quietly and like a small child is told “in a minute” “maybe tomorrow” “later” again and again and again. It accepts meekly, as powerless children must. But the road, the road belongs to the writer. Here she knows it is her right to rule for I have carved this space for her. I knew she was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Her quiet yet strong voice gently calling me upward.

The hesitancy in my step began to dissipate. An excitement took over. Three hours all my own to write from my favorite perch at Fortezza Pia high above Ascoli. I had gone there many times in my days here. It was my first proverbial writer’s garret in the sky. The thoughts began to run in time with the blood pumping through my body from the exertion of the long upward climb. With the thoughts came the fears. Could I catch the twisting thoughts in time? They run like forest nymphs, darting in and out amongst trees. They come with force and clarity, swirling around you so close you almost feel their touch, and then dance away, taunting and teasing you to find the words to express them. Sometimes you do. Often you don’t. Would I today? Could I clear the cobwebs of this space, untouched for six months? Could I thrust open the windows of the tightly shuttered tower room in my mind, filling it with sunshine, and illuminate some darkened page with words that flow through my fingers?

The transition is always difficult for me; moving between the two worlds within which I live. This place between some formalized existence of work and money, taxes and to-dos, specified identities – lawyer, bartender, tenant, New Yorker – and the road where these things are mere memories and my purpose is only to inhale life and breathe out in words what has passed through me; the sights, tastes, sounds, smells, the feelings beneath my fingers and within my heart.

Something within me knows that some people live in both worlds simultaneously. They find the stolen moments of spiritual ecstasy, intellectual inquiry, philosophical perusals, and the lingering light of love somewhere between the laundry and the mail. I do not know how to do anything but die second by second in a day that resembles the day before and the day before that, my spirit flickering like a candle beneath a slowly descending glass.

Perhaps we all feel as if we are missing something in that other world where we do not live. I wonder what it is like to descend deep into a single place, just as others wonder what it is like to be carried on the wings of the wind to so many. I envy you who sit in your warm homes, reading this now from the same room as you read your emails yesterday, greeting the day with your love by your side or your familiar favorite pillow beneath your head, passing the evenings with friends who sit before you rather than across some wireless signal from the sky. And I have seen envy in the eyes of those who have these things for the excitement of the unknown that I face everyday. It seems the best we can do is embrace the lives we have chosen for they are indeed our own creation.

And so as I look across the rolling hills of my beloved Italy, my thoughts turn to the road ahead, the places waiting to be seen, the experiences waiting to be had, the words waiting to be expressed. As I move toward all that is new, my heart is warmed by the love I carry for those who wish me well from all corners of the world. Unfettered by the descending glass, the candle that is my spirit burns with the hope that in some small way I bring to those who have the courage that I do not - those who face the every day world, who keep the wheels churning, the taxes paid, the world moving - a stolen moment between the laundry and the mail that makes them smile or think or burrow safely and joyfully into their own familiar bed with visions of a world beyond and a heart that is happy to be home.

With love and light,

Sherry

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