Category > Europe

Sep 17, 2012
Spain
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Immersion

Mallorca, Spain

If you told me where I’d be now and who I’d be with way back in January, I’d… I don’t know!  But if you asked me in April – well, look at the end of my last entry in my South America blog for a quick hint.

This is certainly not what I was expecting eight months ago, but it’s the most apropos way for me to end this trip.

After ending my South American leg with Oscar and Silvia, it only seemed fitting to end my Europe leg with them again, after we split up in Ecuador to head around the world in opposite directions.  At their invitation, I spent 15 days at their home in beautiful Mallorca. Continue reading →

Sep 2, 2012
France, Monaco
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High life

Côte d’Azur (France, Monaco)

One last NUS friend to visit! I wasn’t able to meet up with Ivan in his native Serbia, but the Cote d’Azur more than suffices! Unfortunately, there are no hostels in Cannes, where he was staying with his sister. I stayed in Nice, the largest and cheapest city in the area, but a 1.5 hour bus ride away. Oddly enough for what may be the most expensive region in Europe, that bus only costs 1€!

It was five days of heading to the beach, walking around some very pretty Mediterranean towns, experiencing the famed rudeness of people from the region, ogling rich people with their expensive cars and terrifyingly wrinkly tans, and eating way too many pains au chocolat. All that leads to a pretty darn good time. We met up with Olympio in Cannes, walked at least three loops around Antibes, felt centuries out-of-place in the medieval area of Cagnes (which feels more like a lived-in open-air museum), dived head first into giant waves in Nice, and witnessed a double-rainbow framed by both Monaco’s palace and casino. Guess there really is gold at the end of a rainbow.

Oh, and somewhere in all of that, helped carried a grand piano up five flights of stairs.

Aug 27, 2012
Ireland
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Release

Dublin and Inishmore, Ireland

Ireland is the last new country of my trip, and my final portion of solo backpacking.

Just like for Macedonia and Kosovo, I wasn’t planning on being here.  The Schengen problem led me here, and it seemed an appropriate way to decompress from the emotional turmoil of the last little while and the funeral in Stockholm.  While I had a week for Ireland, in contrast to Macedonia and Kosovo, I chose to keep the number of destinations low and spend more time in each.

I spent a couple days in Dublin (Irish: Áth Cliath), which is quite small.  Admittedly I wasn’t in too much of a mood to see things.  The rain didn’t help – it felt like a rain cloud was following me half the time!  You can literally see that it isn’t raining across the street, or vice-versa.  On a city tour, I learned a little more about the history – the shamrock (Catholics explaining the Trinity), invasions, countless failed uprisings, gaining independence from the UK in 1922, the Northern Ireland split due to religious causes (Rep. Ireland is Catholic, the North is Protestant), and the droughts that killed so many and caused many others to emigrate, bringing Irish culture and pride (see St. Patrick’s Day, a largely expat creation) around the world with them while causing Ireland to lose 20% of its population that it has never recovered from.  Still, how mere religious divisions can cause wars is really lost on me. Continue reading →

Aug 18, 2012
Kosovo
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Befriend

Pristina and Prizren, Kosovo

Before I start, a note — Kosovo (Albanian: Kosova) is recognised by roughly half of the world’s countries as an independent country, Canada included. Others do not support or outright reject the claim, continuing to recognise it as an autonomous province of Serbia under UN administration, as Serbia itself continues to assert.

Kosovo was never on my radar for this trip, but with three extra days lying around before I needed to head back to Istanbul, it seemed like a good opportunity to see what was there, especially since the only things I’ve ever heard about Kosovo are unfortunately news stories about war and tension. Kosovo is also Europe’s newest country, having declared independence unilaterally in 2008. Around both cities I went to, I found pro-independence and anti-Serbia graffiti. Yet oddly for an independent country, three flags are flown commonly – Kosovo’s, yes, but also Albania and USA. During Kosovo’s pre-independence days, Albania’s flag was flown for its primarily Albanian population wishing to assert itself from Serbia. America’s flag is flown due to George Bush Sr. and especially Bill Clinton’s support of the country during its more tumultuous days; both presidents have large streets named after them in Pristina, and there’s even a statue of Bill Clinton…with a shop named “Hilary” next to it! Continue reading →

Aug 15, 2012
North Macedonia
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Unexpected

Bitola and Ohrid, Macedonia

On my way to Macedonia’s crown jewel, Lake Ohrid, I decided to make a little pit stop in Bitola for a look at the country’s second-largest (though still pretty small) city.  Well, our bus itself took a long pit stop on the way there – there was an accident in front of us on a small road, with not enough room to u-turn.

At least we were stuck in some pleasant scenery.  Being the only non-Macedonian on the bus was a little bit strange at first.  As our bus stood waiting on the road, some of us went in and out to see the accident or just to get some fresh air.  After a long time, a younger looking man, Antonio, struck up a conversation with me, curious as to what I was doing in Macedonia.  He spoke some English – not great, but enough for me to understand kind of what he wanted to say; so we kept our conversation topics pretty basic.  I appreciated the effort but I felt bad that I wasn’t able to reciprocrate in his language (or any of the other ones he speaks better – Albanian and Turkish.  They have to learn a lot of languages in school!  On multiple occasions when he wasn’t certain, he called his girlfriend, who spoke better English and also computer access to Google Translate!  Aww. Continue reading →

Aug 12, 2012
North Macedonia
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Identity crisis

Skopje, Macedonia

I’ll admit I knew absolutely nothing about the Republic of Macedonia (Republika Makedonija with a hard “k”, not a soft “c”) before coming.  Well, other than the fact that Greece disputes their name, causing them to be admitted into the UN under the clunky provisional reference name of “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (“FYROM” for short, pronounced like “fee-rom”), over the claim that most of ancient Macedon lies in current Greece.  Oh, and I knew Macedonia’s flag – unique in design, one of my favourites around cause looking at it just makes me happy.

But I came here because of my Schengen area restriction.  As a Canadian, I’m only allowed to travel in the Schengen area (the shared customs zone that encompasses much of Europe, where you can cross borders without having your passport checked) for 90 days within a 180 day period.  There is no option to extend this short of applying for school or residency.  With Sweden now on my itinerary as well as promises to meet people in France and Spain, all of which would use up the rest of my allowance, I needed to stay outside of the Schengen zone for at least a few weeks.  Turkey was supposed to be my remedy for this, but with no desire to stay there, I opted to head to a nearby non-Schengen country.  Back in Israel, Bernhard suggested Macedonia…so here I am! Continue reading →

Jul 25, 2012
Latvia
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Layover

Rīga, Latvia

Okay, so I kinda lied at the end of my last entry.  I had a five hour layover in Rīga, Latvia between Tallinn and Tel Aviv, Israel, and decided to take the opportunity to blitz through the old town.  With the city about 40 minutes away from the airport by bus though, time was tight.

I certainly didn’t make it easy for myself by getting lost immediately after stepping off the bus.  Turns out I had taken it too far – but no one told me where the old town was!  There were hardly any directional signs either, like there were in Tallinn – and the ones that were there were all in Latvian.  (Despite the proximity of Estonia and Latvia, and the fact that they are both tiny countries, their languages have absolutely nothing in common.) Continue reading →

Jul 24, 2012
Estonia
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Why not

Tallinn, Estonia

Given my previous and next destinations, this detour definitely seems a bit offbeat, eh?  Plus, I’ve been to Tallinn before on my most recent past visit to Europe, with my family on a cruise/group tour.  So why visit again?  Well hey, like the rest of most of this trip, a friend (Kaarel, also from my time at NUS) invited me, why else?  And even though it’s far…why not? 🙂  It certainly doesn’t hurt that flights aren’t too expensive.

From my impression, it seems that most visitors to Estonia only visit Tallinn (just as I had done previously, around 9 years ago now), which is a shame, because while Tallinn’s famous medieval old town (Vanalinn) is immaculate and really unlike anything else out there, there are so many other sides to this small country that I’m at a bit of a loss how to describe it concisely. Continue reading →

Jul 19, 2012
Germany
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History

Berlin, Germany

For those following along on the map, this is where my trip stops making sense, at least in terms of an intuitive route.

I had five days in Berlin to visit some very good friends of mine from NUS – Johannes, my amazing roommate, who is actually from Berlin, and Peter and Andrea, who are both not from Berlin but are great friends that I travelled with several times. This was really the only reason I came, but hey, it’s Berlin!  With Johannes busy with exams, Peter busy with a project, and Andrea coming a few days late but taking slow trains from southern Germany for 12 hours just to see me, I had plenty of time to explore the city – although Johannes gave me a quick but wide-covering tour on my first night alone. Continue reading →

Jul 13, 2012
Bosnia-Herzegovina
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Holes

Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Most people head from Dubrovnik to either Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) or Kotor, Montenegro as one- or two-day side trips.  Looking for something different from the coast, I opted for the former, and Anthony joined me.  Mostar is most famous for its enormous bridge (just look at the pictures) and its scenic old town.  Most tourists come by from Dubrovnik just for an hour or two, snap a few pictures of the bridge, then head back, but we opted to stay for two nights.  When I told the friendly but English-impaired hostel owner in Dubrovnik of my plans, he shook his head.  “Ohhh.  Noooo.  Al-Qaeda.”  Whaa?

Anyway, we headed to Mostar by bus, which took about 4 hours, multiple border crossings (Croatia has the entire coast except for this little 16 km stretch that belongs to BiH) no passport stamps, and some incredible scenery.  The Dalmatian coast is stunning, but heading inland into BiH, the scenery turns into green green green mountains and settlements scattered around valleys.  The style of the houses changed a lot more too, and things were admittedly a little more run-down, in stark contrast to all the resorts we were driving past in Croatia. Continue reading →