I haven't really had time to sit down and write an entry that would do justice to the flood of memories, thoughts and observances that I've had sine returning to Germany on Monday. AFter 4.5 years away, I'm finally back - and staying at Heidi's house. It's like reliving my early twenties all over again. The bad and the good.
The idea behind coming to Heidi's was to find a place to rest and relax a little. Spend some time on a REAL computer (not just my iphone) to organize the next few weeks of my trip in the Balkans. On Easter Sunday, I get on the bus to Slovenia and I'll be in Croatia by the end of the week. After that, I have no idea. I'll get to Belgrade by mid-May, but before then, I want to see Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and the (the disputed territory of) Kosovo (That was just for you Marko.) We'll see if that actually happens though. I'm torn between hurrying around the Balkans trying to see everything versus just going to find a nice little bombed out town in Bosnia and watch the flies congregate for a few days. It's all up in the air.
The past week has been all that I would have expected from Western Europe. The ferry from Iceland to Denmark was fairly austere, unless you were willing to spend heaps of money on heat lamp pizzas and french fries. I opted to bring my own food, which consisted of dried fish and canned peas. And peanut butter. I was still happy that I chose to cross the rest of the north Atlantic Ocean via ship, but I don't think I need to do it again.
In Aarhus, Denmark, where I stayed for two nights, I went to a theater festival (Quonga) with my couchsurfing host. Watching plays in a foreign language in challenging, but it makes you really pay attention to the actions of the actors and reactions of the crowd. Totally different experience. I enjoyed the plays with none or as little dialogue as possible. One such play was a re-enactment of a video game. They captured the style really well, in such a bizarre way that I could only expect from Scandinavians.
From Aarhus, I took the overnight train to Freiburg, where I've been since Tuesday morning. I hardly slept at all on the train and, as a result, had an interesting encounter at about 4am. In Hannover, our train had acquired a few coaches from another train. As I wandered through the hallway looking for some water, suddenly found that all the signs had changed from German to Cyrllic. Hmm. Then, about half way down one of the coaches, this woman leaned out of her cabin and yelled at me "END WAGON!" And then we fought over whether or not I could buy a bottle of water. Really mean woman. It turns out that it was a train from Warsaw and she was one of the Polish crew. I instantly regretted not going to Poland (opting instead for more time in the Balkans) because, judging from her at least, it appeared that you had to fight for everything in Poland. That would have been fun.
Ok, that's all for now. I posted more pictures from Iceland up on my flickr page. I've taken a break from pictures in Germany. I already have enough of them and you all have already seen pictures of the Black Forrest before. I would like to draw your attention to the most recent pictures, as they catalogue the shaving of my beard. I couldn't take it anymore and I am now ten times more comfortable without it. I don't see how you Paul Bunyons out there can stand such facial hair.
Bye
The idea behind coming to Heidi's was to find a place to rest and relax a little. Spend some time on a REAL computer (not just my iphone) to organize the next few weeks of my trip in the Balkans. On Easter Sunday, I get on the bus to Slovenia and I'll be in Croatia by the end of the week. After that, I have no idea. I'll get to Belgrade by mid-May, but before then, I want to see Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and the (the disputed territory of) Kosovo (That was just for you Marko.) We'll see if that actually happens though. I'm torn between hurrying around the Balkans trying to see everything versus just going to find a nice little bombed out town in Bosnia and watch the flies congregate for a few days. It's all up in the air.
The past week has been all that I would have expected from Western Europe. The ferry from Iceland to Denmark was fairly austere, unless you were willing to spend heaps of money on heat lamp pizzas and french fries. I opted to bring my own food, which consisted of dried fish and canned peas. And peanut butter. I was still happy that I chose to cross the rest of the north Atlantic Ocean via ship, but I don't think I need to do it again.
In Aarhus, Denmark, where I stayed for two nights, I went to a theater festival (Quonga) with my couchsurfing host. Watching plays in a foreign language in challenging, but it makes you really pay attention to the actions of the actors and reactions of the crowd. Totally different experience. I enjoyed the plays with none or as little dialogue as possible. One such play was a re-enactment of a video game. They captured the style really well, in such a bizarre way that I could only expect from Scandinavians.
From Aarhus, I took the overnight train to Freiburg, where I've been since Tuesday morning. I hardly slept at all on the train and, as a result, had an interesting encounter at about 4am. In Hannover, our train had acquired a few coaches from another train. As I wandered through the hallway looking for some water, suddenly found that all the signs had changed from German to Cyrllic. Hmm. Then, about half way down one of the coaches, this woman leaned out of her cabin and yelled at me "END WAGON!" And then we fought over whether or not I could buy a bottle of water. Really mean woman. It turns out that it was a train from Warsaw and she was one of the Polish crew. I instantly regretted not going to Poland (opting instead for more time in the Balkans) because, judging from her at least, it appeared that you had to fight for everything in Poland. That would have been fun.
Ok, that's all for now. I posted more pictures from Iceland up on my flickr page. I've taken a break from pictures in Germany. I already have enough of them and you all have already seen pictures of the Black Forrest before. I would like to draw your attention to the most recent pictures, as they catalogue the shaving of my beard. I couldn't take it anymore and I am now ten times more comfortable without it. I don't see how you Paul Bunyons out there can stand such facial hair.
Bye
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