Italy the rest

The next day I slept in a bit, woke up with bites all over my hands and face, and headed for the Jewish quarter which was a 4 minute walk from the hostel. It is the origin of the word "ghetto." I did the museum but skipped the synogogue tour, which was a huge mistake. I thought Id see it at services but no, there are in fact 3 synogugues on the tour, none of which you can see during services because the two non-safardic only open for the high holidays and are incredibly beautiful and the safardic one si the summer one that is unheated. Then I went on the water bus to the glass blowing island, Murano. I was wandering around trying to make sense of the directions Id received to Ty-something or other, the farthest island that was abandoned due to a plague and thus has an old cathedral. I ended up wandering down an ally and standing in front of an open furnace door watchign the glass blowers. Eventually they invited me in and proceeded to shower me with gifts and demonstrations. I was given a glass bead and shown how they place them onto vases-to-be, and I was given a paperweight, and a piece of silver and gold and shown how they roll those onto the glass. They were mostly making various types of vases. Then I was told (all with sign language, they didnt speak a word of English) to stand in front of a table and watched as before my eyes a guy made a horse that stood on its hind legs and tail. Then he produced another (not hot) one and had another guy wrap it up for me. Then they had me give my camera to one guy while another had me blow a little bit of glass up intoa big bubble. He wanted me to pop it but I didnt have the lung capacity aparently. He made it explode and gave me a shard of the glass Id blown. Then they went to lunch and I went to the rather boring dead island.

I got back to Venice just in time for services, which I attended at the safardic synogogue because the scenery would be more interesting than at the Hasidic (I think) schule. After services the two communities came together and went to the kosher restaurant that serves the whole community free Shabbas dinner and all the tourists too. Luckily there were people (other tourists mostly) who spoke English. They served challah, an amaying spread of 6-8 Israeli salads, then soup, then beef, then chicken, then finally cake for desert. It was kind of a ridiculous amount of food, and delicious, and free, and the men all sang songs and made lots of noise and it was general fun.

The next day (sat) I got up at 6am and hopped on the first of 5 trains that took me to Cinque Terre. By the time I got there I was smelly, hot, tired, and I'd never seen such beautiful beach. I got off the train and it was 75 or so which was amaying. I went to the 5th town, which is cheapest, found accomodation for 15 euro, and lay on the beach all afternoon, mixing swimming, reading, and napping until sunset. The next day I took all my stuff, including my carefully packaged glass horse in my shoulder bag and my backpack, and set out to hike the trail between the towns. I happily discovered that it was daylight savings time and Id thus gained an extra hour. The first leg was nice and flat and 20 minutes long. I had to take the train from the 4th to 3rd town, through what would have been an hour hike, because the trail was closed due to rock slides. The towns are all various small sizes, full of colorfully painted buildings and extremely cute. It was kind of overcast but I managed to work up a good sweat on the leg between the 3rd and 2nd towns, an hour and 45 minute hike that was lots of ups and downs and flights of stairs. It was really nice to hike with the sound and view of the ocean. I rested in the 2nd town for a while and went on to the 1.5 hr walk to the first. I ended up being grateful that the leg of trail had been closed because by the end of the hike, which culminated in about 20 minutes of climbing downstairs (I cant imagine starting off the other way), my legs were trembling. It was a little cold for swimming but I relaxed on the beach until dinner and my train to Florence, where I caught the night train back to Vienna. I ended up in a car with other IES kids coming from Rome so it was fairly comfortable, we were able to put our feet up on eachothers' chairs.

An interesting note about language - when I arrived in Italy I kept wanting to use German words for things even though I knew perfectly well they wouldn't be understood, because German is the not-English language on my brain. This was true when I got to Vienna as well; I kept supplying Spanish words for German words I didn't know because I knew the English was wrong. Yesterday, back in Vienna, I said Scuzzi a few times before I got my brain to switch back to Deutsch.

Day trip and Italy part 1

(written 10/26)

The day trip was great. First we went to Kloister Neuburg (monastary new castle) which was very very close. We could smell the wine fermenting 30 meters below during parts of the tour. We saw some interesting art and old furniture and rooms designed for use by the Hapsburgs that they never ended up using. Among the art we saw: some cool enamel things arranged as an alter that are so significant they had a 5 min video about them, some statues, especially fo the virgin, that were nearly 8-900 years old, two original roman citizenship documents which are really rare cause you only got them if you survived being a soldier for 20 years and of course not many of the documents themselves survived (the monastary was built near roman ruins), two paintings of some saint being stabbed that are so subtle it's like a "what's wrong with this picture" thing, and I'm sure there were other significant items but I was very hungry and tired by the end of it and sometimes churches just get to be too much. Oh and a million and one illusions in art and decoration to the legend of the monastary's church or whatever, basically some prince guy's bride's really expensive veil blew off the night of the wedding and they thought they'd never see it again. Then a year or two later he was hunting in the nearby hills and he saw this shining thing in an elderbury bush. And it was the veil. And then the virgin appeared, so he built a church there. I love how all these random legends end with "and then the virgin appeared to him." After eating we went to this guy's private castle. How cool is that? Its not real, in the sense that many of the items were acquired and weren't original to the castle, but are all period pieces, and it was really cool. 600 year old books, seals that people used instead of signatures, old furniture, stuffed birds, random gargoyles and people being eaten in statues up in the corners of rooms, the kitchen... Finally we went to a winery, a little family place, which is really cool because they have resisted the urge to consolidate and dealt with the EU and profit issues by going directly to the end-consumer. The owner's brother guided us through the vineyards (had a few grapes off the vine), a wine tasting (probably 5 different kinds? kind of lost track down in the basement with the barrels), and gave us info about making wine. Then the owner's wife made us an amaaaazing delicious dinner. Sadly the next day I was feverish and didn't go on the other day trip (which had a similar agenda: monastary, caslte (albeit the one Richard the Lionhearted of England was held in for randsom that was then used to refortify the city's walls thus saving Vienna and perhaps all of Western Europe from falling to the Turks), and wine tasting. I heard the food wasn't as good. Luckily after telling me they couldn't, they ended up giving me my money back.

So here I am in Venice on my 4 day mini-break. It's Thursday night. Last night I had my first ever night train experience. My reserved ticket was right on the aisle of the cabin, and the cabin was the one right at the end of the train by the bathroom and exit. Not so loud with the door closed, I thought, except that I woke up every single time the train stopped and people got on and off. Night trains are not comfortable. The one back to Vienna will be even less because I could only get a center seat; no walls to lean against. My only hope is that like last time there is some sort of noshow by the window, except this time I move into it instead of staying put. Redeeming the whole experience was the fact that it cost me 5 euro. No, not 5 euro plus 1/6 of the price of my Eurail pass, because I had no clue what to do with the thing and the conductor didnt ask for it so it is still blank. I'm gonna use the extra day to save myself 30 euro Sat. when I travel to the other coast. Anyway I tired myself out even more waiting 30+ min for the hostel to open (despite the sign that said they opened before my train got in) and then took off with their very helpful walking trail around the city. I decided to head for the furthest point and track back. Well, leaving my huge Lonely Planet with its decent map had its benefits, but the map the hostel gave me can only roughly be called a map. Before I could even get the the farthest point I was hopelessly lost many times. The thing about Venice that is really annoying is that there are all these cute narrow winding streets but they end up bringing you to a river with no bridge. So then you know what direction you need to go in but by the time you turn around and find another street to go down you have lost it again. Also there are many dead-ends, none marked, so you walk several blocks only to turn around and do it again. This was sometimes nice, as there are random things down dead end streets like 5-story tall winding brick towers with arches. Not having a map meant I saw a lot more of the city but it was frustrating at times. Tomorrow I'm getting one from the tourist info office. Eventually I found the Gugenheim and it was all worth it. The collection is small but amazing, with incredible statues and some really interesting futurism pieces I learned about in my Modern Art class last fall - plus one by Cara that was the topic of my term paper. Also my new favorite Picasso, called either "The Beach" or "On the Beach." And a Louis Vuitton briefcase that Duchamp made with miniatures of all his previous works inside. And a really cool statue of "young woman's profile" or something like that. I skipped the old old art at the Academia as I usually don't enjoy it much and can get my fill in churches. Speaking of, the Venetians lost 2 million to the plague and what did they do? They built a huge gaudy statue-ridden ornate humungous 2-domed church to show there gratitude that it ended having only killed that many. I wandered around by other churches, always very proud of myself when I found what I was looking for, and also sat in a square for more than an hour listening to a Bulgarian guy play classical guitar on a funny looking empty upside down collapsible guitar he'd disigned. I once again saw the Piazzo Marco with the largest, gaudiest, goldest church in the world and more pigeons than people. This was practically the only thing I saw on my 10th grade trip to Italy, and luckily I also got to do a gondola ride then because there's no way I could afford one.

A bit on Austrians and Hitler

Background: the Austrians are still really, really sensitive to the fact that their nation gave birth to Hitler, even if they weren't the ones who elected him, and to the fact that they allowed Hitler to take over.

I went with a few friends to see The Black Dahlia tonight at an English theater. The movie, by the way, is pretty good, very disgusting in a nasty-bloody-uck sort of way, but very interesting and certainly suspenseful. It had interesting camerawork and was part film noir, part something else. Anyway, the star character (played by Josh Hartnett) has a German last name. Somebody asks him, "What is that name, anyway?" "German." "Germans. Good people. Hitler was a little excessive." Of course the three of us burst out laughing. Well, Tara and I giggled, and Karen kind of laughed really, really loudly, and then immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. The rest of the theater was totally silent, and an older lady behind us stood up and leaned over to look at where the laughter had come from. Ooops.

Another update on another 2 weeks

Wow, I am pretty bad at updating this. I was going to say, "at updating this regularly," but it appears I am updating it every 2 weeks, which is pretty regular.

I guess I should start with Salzburg, which was very pretty. We got there Friday and it took forever to find our hostel but we found it after accidentally getting on the wrong bus (probably my fault) and riding out to the suburb-like areas with cute houses and then into a barren industrial area at whcih point we got off the bus and waited for one going in the other direction. I had really yummy goulash for dinner and then we went to a tavern with their own Herbstbier (fall beer, just a seasonal brew) and some weird strudel I'd never seen before that was bread-y and nutty and good. Saturday we hiked up to the castle, we're talking a hike, and toured. It was kind of expensive to get in but gorgeous views, really interesting exhibits (well the endless military exhibits did not always keep my attention) and a cool audio tour through some of the rooms including a torture chamber and the top of a tower with an amazing view. For the afternoon we paid way too much money, but it was worth it, to see the world's largest accessable ice cave. It was cold, another hike (I went hiking in the alps!) and truly amazing. Unlike other caves I've toured they did not have it lit electricly but gave everyone a caving lamp with an open flame and the guide had some flares and a brighter lamp. The cave was absolutely amazing, hard to describe, and pretty dark so my pictures didn't capture how cool it was. There were ice sheets that were thousands of years old, and formations that looked like a polar bear and elephant and such. We got back so late Sat. night that I had to sleep at my friends' apartment because they live right by the train station.

Since then, hm...class has kept me busy enough I guess. Classes are terribly easy in a disapointing way, simple work easy and not less work easy. I like my classes that are not in my majors but the polisci and econ classes are reviews of basic principles half the time which is really painful. I've actually been being quite lazy during the week, but last week I got my museum pass so now I have free access to many of the city's museums. My Vienna Past and Present class toured the treasury, which was pretty impressive, especially the 1000 yr old embroidered tapestries that were part of Charlemange's coronation set (except probably a bit younger than him and not actually used by him).

Last Friday was my roommate's 21st birthday. I would have liked to take it as a travel weekend but oh well, we had an amazing time at a bowling alley (probably the only one in the city) and then went to the Triangle, the bar district basically that I had been waiting to check out until the Austrian students got back.

Vienna has gotten cold! I had to give in to my frequent urges to go into one of the city's 6 H&Ms and buy a sweater and gloves. German class is going well, we've learned the imperative and the perfect tense and such so I can sort of maybe have conversations that are more than "I go here and I like applestrudle." Our landlord came back from Berlin and had our hot water fixed so we are really happy that we can have hot showers (before they were warm-cold-warm-cold).

This weekend I've got two daytrips, one with my history class and another to the wine region as an IES field trip. Wednesday a club here is doing u2 night which I am very excited for! Next weekend is the 4 day weekend so I'll be heading down to Venice and Florence. I'm pissed I bought a Eurorail pass cause now I am pretty much locked into going to Germany when I'd rather go to Poland. Also, apparently we have no class during midterms, which they didn't make clear to us until this week, so I could have travelled after Tues the 7th until the following monday, except I didnt know this and a friend is coming to visit that weekend. Arrrg that would also have been a time to go to Warsaw and Prague (and Terezin). And that big travel period was their excuse for scheduling the german midterm on the previous saturday thus grounding me here. Not that it's bad to be here, I love Vienna, but I would like to see certain places while they are so readily accessible. I'm probably going to Dresden though I should look through the Germany section of my Lonely Planet...I have no idea what I wrote 2 weeks ago and if I'm just repeating myself...

Now for an update on the past 2 weeks.

They had elections October 1. For the entire time I've been in Vienna, we've been bombarded by billboards and ads with the candidates faces and parties. Many had grafitti on them. I have tons of pictures of them. The Austrian government has 4/5 main parties, from right to left: the FPO which is basically fascist and had signs up that said "Islam go home" and such, the BZO which broke off from them 2 yrs ago, the OVP which was in power and in a coalition with the neoNaz...I mean FPO, the SPO (social democrats, had been in power previously for pretty much the entire history of this era of Austria) and the Greens. I saw a pretty funny commercial run against the OVP, with Clinton subtitled saying "I did not have sex with that woman," then LIAR on the screen, then Bush saying Iraq had wmds, then LIAR, then Schussel (the OVP candidate) saying something in German and then LIAR too. Interesting comparisons to make, sex, a war, and some thing Schussel said. Also the parties all seem to think bribery is ok. Well, not quite bribery, but I collected lots of election loot: a keychain lanyard and pen from the OVP (apparently I missed the hackey sacks!), a lighter, keychain, and little red gummy bears from the socialists (the gummy bears were awesome, totally would have had my vote...but for reasons other than the gummy bears), a pen, postcard, green teabags and a lime candy from the Green party. Pretty cool souveniers all in all. It was very exciting, the Socialists won, and a coalition is being formed now. Also the BZO despite being a new party made it into Parliament (pending official tally). The psoters for the FPO, OVP, and SPO all had stickers on them Monday morning saying "Danke." So civil and nice. The OVP is the only party to have removed their posters so far, sore losers. They did so Tuesday.

October 1 was also the date that most of the city's ice cream parlors close. Very, very sad. The ones that stay open aren't nearly as good, because the ones that close are run by Italians going back to Italy for the winter. I made it my mission during the first week of class to try all of the places in the IES booklet, and I did. 6 or 7 of them. My favorite by far was Tischy, at Reumenplatz, which I went to on Oct 1. There was a huge crowd out front, and Europeans don't believe in lines, so it was basically jostling your way through with elbows to get the ice cream, and took a while but was totally completely entirely worth it. Especially for the hazlenut. I asked when they closed, actually I asked what day they closed, becuase unlike most places they had no sign up, and they actually give away ice cream for free when they close. She said eleventh. Or I thought she did. Turns out she must have meant 11pm, or at least thats what I was left to infer from the fact that it was all shuttered up on the 4th. Now it is getting cold and there are chestnut roasters in place of fruit stands and ice cream stands.

That weekend (last weekend) I also went to Bratislava for Friday afternoon. We saw the Jewish museum but got there to late to see the clock museum, which I'm sure is pretty cool. Saw the castle and views, went out to eat, went to a bar where we think they made us bad drinks just to get rid of the Americans, went to an Irish pub, and went home. There's not much to see in Bratislava so aside from the clock museum I feel like I've seen it all. Then Saturday there was a Flohmarkt (flee market) on my street. Not the part I live on, but 2 blocks away and then stretching all the way through the 7th district to Mariahilferstrasse. I walked the length of it, looking to replace the beautiful amazing warm soft shawl I'd bought in Bosnia and lost somewhere in Slovenia the day I canyoned and hitchhiked and was in a general rush. Ended up with a u2 record and some old postcards of Vienna, plus had a delicious oozing melty kasekraner. (That's a sausage with cheese inside. sooooooo good.)

Monday was Yom Kippur. I will go to the Orthodox synagogue for Shabbat services some time, but for Yom Kippur I went to the new Reform synagogue. The rabbi spoke no German, was a once-a-month import from Jerusalem, the prayer book was in German and Hebrew, and the services went 3 hours before they took a break and I left. 3 hours! Then I went back after my afternoon class, cause I'd heard they were all going out for pizza, and they were doing annoucnements at 6:30 or so. But they launched back into prayers that I didn't understand and that appeared to have the potential to go hours more, so I left. I would have stayed if I felt like it was a good opportunity to meet Austrians, but most of the crowd seemed to be American expats, with some elderly Austrians. It was a nice little synagogue though, on the ground floor of a building by the river, and they mentioned they are trying to raise money and find a cemetary for the congregation.

Classes are pretty OK. I like my lit class and my Vienna history class that has a touring element. My econ and polisci classes feel like intros, which sucks a lot. Even though they have prereqs. Oh well.

Now I'm headed to Salzburg for just one night. Sorry I took so long to update, I'll try to be more regular. I wanted to write about the trip before I moved on, and that was quie a bit to write about.

Part 3: Slovenia

I wasn't much of a fan of Ljubljana. I guess they've got a pretty cool cafe culture along the river, and it's nice at night, but by the time it came to consider lodging for the night I didn't like the city so much that I just set out for the town of Divaca. Ljubljana was pretty much not as pretty as Vienna or Prague or other cities with old architecture and castles, not as charming, didn't really have anything unique or standoutish. I guess just comparatively dull. And my hip was hurting so walking around was a bit miserable. I had a nice room in Divaca, my own after several nights in hostels and on a bus, and the next morning walked 5 kilometers to the caves, asking for directions along the way (German really came in handy, people spoke that but not English). The caves were pretty amazing, lots of tiring steps but absolutely gorgeous. Sadly no pictures were allowed. I bumped into an American woman there who I'd met in Ljubljana waiting for the tourist train to the unspectacular castle, so she offered me a ride to the train station. But she was going to Lipizanna to see the horses, so I went with her en route. They were pretty nice. One of the towns I stopped in on the train route was Nova Gorica, which is on the Italian border. Like, I walked through town square and ended up in Italy, which is tecnically illegal cause I should have used the border crossing down the road. They have a fence right through town, and 2 mayors, but they took down the fence in town square.

I ended up getting into Bovec really, really late, which was apparently bad. All the room agencies were closed and my choices appeared to be expensive (52 euro) hotels. The cheaper hotel (32 euro) said they had no rooms, so I asked the lady if she had any ideas of where I could find one, and she somehow found an extra room she hadn't noticed. Whatever, it was nice, had a tv (national geographic! we don't get that in vienna). The next morning I confirmed with the tourist office that the bus to Bled I'd found out about in Ljubljana would be coming at 3 and I found a rafting agency. I guess I'd missed the early morning canyoning trips so I ended up having to do a more expensive one at 11am with this Slovenian and Croatian family. It was pretty fun, terrifying at some points. Canyoning is basically jumping off waterfalls, with ropes-course-like belay lines set up. We had to hike up, waaaay up, and the air was very very thin. Then we jumped down, slid down, climbed down. One jump was maybe 20 meters down into a cave, which scared the shit out of me, and the more I stood there counting "1-2..." over and over again, the worse it got. Plus all the Slovenians were laughing at me. Finally jumped, and got down just in time to change and make the 3pm bus. Except the bus didn't come. I waited, I asked the tourist office, then this Slovenian lady also going that direction called the bus company. From her very little German I came to understand that the bus had gone kapput and was the last bus of the day. This left me with 1 option: hitchhiking. Which I did, nervously, and survived fine, coming out with a cocacola and apple. I got down to a town with a train station and trained into Bled, where I wandered around in the dark until I found the hostel (where I'd called to make a reservation). And there were 2 guys from my program! The next morning we went to the castle, which had amazing views though not as amazing as the canyoning views, and 6 and 9 liter wine bottles that they use for weddings and open by chopping off the top with swords. Then we went swimming in the frigid, frigid lake, because our train wasn't til like 4, and then slowly made our way back to Vienna where I arrived in time to catch the last Sunday night streetcar to my apartment.

The end.

Part 2: Bosnia

Anyway, got up at 5:15 th next morning and headed for Mostar, Bosnia. Sadly, I crossed the border on a bus so I didn't get a stamp. Mostar was pretty interesting. To start with, the Lonely Planet said that the bus and train station were adjacent, so when I got into the bus station I was planning to check the train timetables later in the day to take the late train to Sarajevo. Well, it turns out there are 2 bus stations, and I was at the Croat one. In fact, I was on the Croat side of town, and nobody really wanted to tell me how to get to the Muslim side of town (though I didn't know the reasoning until later in the day, just that the allegedly friendly Bosnians were being awfully difficult with simple directions). In the end instead of paying 8 marks for a map (4 euro! for a dinky little one horse town map!) I paid 6 marks for a cab ride to the train station, which was probably for the better as it was pouring rain still and it allowed me to enjoy my Burek. Burek: delicious, huge, amazing, savory pastry with mince meat inside.

I wandered around, saw lots of bullet holes and bombed out buildings that I avoided, was shocked by the endless graves marked with 1993, and found my way to the old mosque. There were several tour groups of old French ladies and as I was the only individual the imam opened the door to the tower and let me climb up. Cool views, though again spoiled a little by the haze and rain. Anyway, he said to come back in a few hours when it was less busy and he'd talk to me about the mosque/town, so I wandered around. Saw old town with its uneven cobblestone streets and rebuilt old bridge (Stari Most). Latched on behind an english speaking tour guide who talked about how boys in the town jump of the 20-30 meter high peak of the bridge into the fast-moving water below, how when Franz Joseph came to see Mostar he was afraid he'd fall on the cobblestone so they put carpet out on the bridge, how it was rebuilt from original stones after the war. Saw a gallery with photos from the war, including the river below completely dry - I gathered from the guide that people used it as their only water source. I bought a gorgeous cashmir shawl and was looking at the bridge from a mosque on the river (there were about 100 mosques) when I met an American couple travelling for the whole year (had been to Ghana for several months) and invited them to come back to the other mosque with me.

Here's what I wrote hastily in my gmail after talking to the Imam:
"First we talked to the Imam about the history of the Mosque. It was built by some rich important ottoman figure, though not somebody in government. The guy was called black eyes (in bosnian obviously) and bought not only the land for the mosque but all the land around, so they get their income from renting the surrounding buildings. It is about 450 years old and the tower I climbed is 25 meters high. The tower was destroyed in the war, as were all the mosques' towers except one that was too short (which i have pictures of as well). Like the bridge, they rebuilt the mosque from as many of the original stones as they could salvage, and kept the rest on the propoerty. There are huge scars on the covered patio of the mosque from when the tower fell on it, bursting through the roof as well, which has now been rebuilt. The rich guy built a school and library as well and they have books that are 250, even 500 years old but the library is dirty and in poor condition and lets the rain in so the books are pretty much in bad, bad shape. Anyway, the muslims pray at as many mosques as they wish, basically goign to whichever is nearest. The Imam says that its good to pray at many, because it is less boring that way. We talked about how they are much more open about choice with the religion here than in other Muslim countries. Girls who wear scarves do it by choice, not because their parents make them. Though he indicated that he'd prefer girls do so because women, he said, are more beautiful than men (translation: men are more tempted by women?) so it makes it hard to pray if there are girls nearby showing too much. Anyway, after the war they got money from Saudi Arabia, but it was just enough to make the mosque safe to pray in, not enough to actually rebuild it to its former glory. Later they got money from Turkey to rebuild. Also Pavorati gave them 5Mi Euros. Saudi Arabia now no longer gives much money because the US restricts what Bosnia can receive due to worries about terrorism. Anyway, eventually we worked our way around to the war, I asked where they prayed during the war. This is out of order from our conversation, but basically at first in the very early 90s the Serbs were attacking from the East (the side of the river we are on, with all the mosques, the Muslim side) so the Croats and Muslims took shelter together on the west side. Up until that point in the 500+ year history of the town they had lived mostly in peace. Anyway when the Serbs were attacking everyone there were embargoes on Bosnians getting weapons, because some idiots in the UN thought this would stop the war. Of course the Serbs could get weapons but not the Bosnians so they were in big trouble. Eventually they started making weapons here, then fought back. So they finally drive the serbs out after a 5 month occupation, the Croats and Muslims began to fight. Something about Milosovic actually working with the Croatian president because they wanted to take Bosnian lands and enlarge both their countries. The Immam said the Serb occupation was nothing compared to the war in 1993, where thousands died. All the mosques were targetted especially, but first they had to shell the buildings around the mosques to get to the mosques. The cemetary across from the mosque I was at was sheltered by a building that was still standing, and they would bury the dead at night so the sniper couldn't get at them. There was a sniper on the other bank of the river which is now a holy spot - he scoffed at this, Im not sure if its a christian holy spot or what. They slowly retreated and ended up praying in classrooms of a school off away from the river. I asked him if he was happy when Milosovic died or if he wished hed gotten justice. He said if you are religous you know he would get justice from God. He scoffed at the Hague, saying that it is nothing, 15 years for 10000 deaths, and that the west had set it up to make up for protecting the serbs during the war but it was idiotic, etc. He said what happened to the men was worse than death, far worse than just being killed. Now that the fighting has ended it has gotten better. 8 years ago the town had 2 mayors, 2 school systems, etc. Now there is only one mayor, who is a Croat, but still two school systems - how can the kids grow up as one town if they go to different schools? I asked him if it was good to have one mayor who was a Croat or if hed rather have his own - he said it would be good if the mayor was good. This mayor has held off plans for some sort of Muslim cultural center to be built on Muslim owned land for years, but the Croats got a theater approved in a nearby location, no problem. Theres a lot of tension under the surface between the Croats and Muslims, which explains why when I arrived I had trouble getting people to tell me how to get to the bus station on this side of town.

The immam, whose name was completely unpronounceable and he knew it when he told us, was married but with no kids. He was only 25, had married at 21, had been an Imam there for 7 years! His brother was before him, and their father who died at the beginning of the war was before his brother."

Anyway, I hopped on a 6pm train to Sarajevo, and it was gorgeous, cutting through cliffs and such. I wisely went with the hostel that had an office in the train station and was ready to shuttle me and several others downtown (though the lady lied when she said they had free internet). The hostel was awesome, the first night I met a ton of cool people with interesting travel backgrounds. Think, 28 beds in a small cluster of rooms, with one tiny toilet/sink room and another that had a toilet, sink, and 2 showers....all together, in the open, with no stalls or curtains. Not sure who thought of that, but standard practice was to lock the door, so for 28 beds there were really 1.5 toilets and a shower. All of which were filthy, but the beds were very clean.

Because the guided tour was 20 marks plus 5 marks entrance to the museum, I decided to go it alone on the advice of the American couple in Mostar. I went with a kiwi on a train and a bus out to a suburb farmy type area where the driver told us to get off. We walked down a dirt road that felt like it was the wrong place, but we found the museum. They dug the tunnel during the war as a way around the Serb blockade, guarded it really well, and aside from aid drops at the airport it was the only way through to the outside world. They'd smuggle in food and weapons. Then I went back into town. Sarajevo is literally in a valley, with the river and main streets running straight between the hills. The hills made it ridiculously easy to hold in siege, you could really see it just standing in the city. I saw the ugly yellow Holiday Inn that the journalists were holed up in, and went to the History museum where there were really interesting exhibits on the history of the region and on the 1990s. There were always English captions but the articles were just in Serb so it would have been nice to have those translated. I wandered back along the river, passed the new Synagogue which was covered in scaffolding and not open, through old town. I figured out about my bus for the next evening, and on the advice of the cool hostel manager wandered up the hills for a view of the city (and, like in Mostar, the miles of gravestones that are all dated 1993-1995). I then wandered around for about an hour trying to find an atm because I literally had no Bosnian money (asked for directions about 30 times) until I ran into a guy from the hostel who'd been there a week and knew where one was. I decided to eat at this place recommended by the guide book and the American couple, so I ordered a sampler which was absolutely amazingly delicious.

Back at the hostel for the night, I was now an oldie instead of a newbie, so I got to sit around with the manager and other guests. The manager brought us beer when his shift was over and talked up a storm. I wish I'd taken the tour because what my friends in Mostar didn't tell me was that you get this amazing narrative of somebody's actual experiences. I went to the 3 places they go, but I missed out on that and got a sample while the manager was talking. He also told one of his many tour jokes: "This guy is swinging on a swing, and his friend asks him what he's doing. He says he's bored, but his friend wants to know what on earth he's doing. 'Fucking with the snipers,' he says." Now that's pretty intense. Sunny was generally an interesting guy, trying to impress the girls with his hostel-manager power trip (he controls about three quarters of the beds in Sarajevo, if you're nice he'll find you a bed on a fully booked day, if you're an asshole entitled tourist, you're screwed). He also talked about Jazne, the blond 30-something woman who's so crazy/drugged/drunk she looks like she's 50. Jazne hangs out at the train station and likes Japanese men because they don't say no very firmly for cultural reasons. So she offers them a room for 5 Euro and then seduces them, basically. She's actually in Japanese guidebooks, has a bunch of google.japan hits, this asian canadian guy I met said she'd approached him in the train station and asked if he was from Japan and that he'd heard about her from a Japanese guy on a boat in Croatia. Half of Japan loves her, says Sunny, and half is scared of her and shows up at 7am at the hostel office asking for a room for the next night. Sunny also talked about his 2 great disappointments when he travelled out of Bosnia. I guess he went on some end of high school trip to Italy and his friends appointed him to go order in MacDonalds. (Did I mention? No McD's in Sarajevo, they didn't want it or the jobs they'd lose for the property McD's demanded, so along with probably Havana it's one of the only capitals without a McD's.) He ordered Big Macs in English from a woman who didn't speak much English, and when she put them on the tray he was sure there was some misunderstanding. "Big Macs, Biiiiggg macs. Big," he said. I guess the "Big" Mac and the statue of David were his two great disapointments in Italy.

Colorful detours aside. Wednesday I got up bright and early and, refusing to use the slooooooow overpriced internet next door, set out towards the Jewish cemetary, certain I'd find a cafe along the way to check the primary results. Problem was, I left old town and hadn't wandered passed one, and new town isn't touristy so there were none there. At that point I was pretty much at the turn off to go up the hill to the cemetary, so I did without knowing the election results. The Jewish cemetary in Sarajevo is incredible. It's up on a hill that overlooks "sniper alley," a busy intersection near the Holliday Inn where civilians were often shot by snipers...from the Jewish cemetary. It looks like it's been hit by vandals, and in a way it has. Many gravestones have scars from bullets hitting them, many are knocked over. The giant rectangular stone holocaust memeorial actually has a shell hole on one side. It's sort of a tourist site so a lot of it is well-walked on, even littered upon, but I went way up high towards the old section before I realized with a start that, while it is a residential area, a tourist site, and has no warning signs, there was a possiblity there might be mines off the main path. So I walked on the gravestones back to the path. By then I had gotten used to always staring up at bullet holes in buildings, but the mine thing wasn't something I'd thought about, having been only in the city. After the cemetary I found internet and was very happy about Deval, then went to a few Jewish museums. One was the city's official Jewish museum located in the old temple, with vague exhibits on culture and the holocaust, the other was a gallery next door that had letters and pictures from concentration camps and of victims and survivors on display, and really interesting stories. The Jewish community was at one point 14,000 or so, and after the Holocaust had dwindled to either 7000 or 1500 (I forget). After the war in the 90s it was down to either 1500 or 700, with many poeple going to Israel and leaving a population with very few young people. I wish I'd stayed in Sarajevo for Rosh Hashannah, I'm sure I would have been invited to dinner and that would have been really interesting.

After more amazing food from the same restaurant, and talking with a grad student doing field research on the conflict who had heard of Tim Burke, I got on a night bus to Zagreb, Croatia. I pretty much locked my purse to myself, and slept not so well, though apprently well for the last hour after the border crossing (still no stamp for Bosnia, damn it) that when I woke up we were in Zagreb and the bus was empty and I had to rush to get my shoes on and get off the bus while my contacts were all messed up. I found the train station and got on the next train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Belated but lengthy story of my weeklong break, Part 1: Croatia

So, several weeks ago I had a break. I travelled on my own and returned with over 2 gigs of pictures, every last one of which I'm way too lazy to figure out how to post.

I left on Sat the 16th, taking a bus to the Bratislava airport with just my backpack, Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring, a bag with some snacks, and a purse. I was very proud of how lightly I packed. It was pouring rain and windy and the little Sky Europe plane got tossed around to the point where I almost wished I hadn't used the barf bag for scratch paper as the plane was taking off (well, it wasn't quite that bad).

I touched down in Split, where I took the room offered to me by a cute old woman who was less pushy than a less cute old woman. It wa 150 Kunas, a bit more than the 100 the guidebook said I'd pay, but still just over 20 euros, and the room was complete with a TV. I shared a bathroom with the family who owned the apartment, and what a weird family it was. There was a little toddler, and a mom, and a girl in her 20s who walked around in her underwear. There were maybe 3 other bedrooms and if they weren't arguing they were shut in their rooms watching TV.

Anyway, I gave myself a tour of the castle, climbing the stairs to the top of the tower for a spectacular view once in the afternoon and again when the clouds cleared (I convinced the guy to let me back in on the original ticket). As it was raining I decided to forego the islands and head to Dubrovnik the next day, but in the meantime I went to the restaurant recommended by the woman who leased me the room. I had some red wine and the most delicious veal in sauce with potatos. Really, really good. I was even planning to go back when they opened the next morning at 9am befor going to Dubrovnik.

As I wandered back to my room in the castle/old city, I passed a bar with a football game on, so I figured, why not? There was one other woman in there, who explained to me that Split was wearing white against a team from the north. They kept refilling my drink without asking me, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind, and the place was full of smoke but very, very local. As in, it was actually the official tobacco smoking club of Split's headquarters. They had some sort of team picture on the wall that they proudly showed me. Eventually I got into a conversation with a few guys about Bush which was very interesting and largely involved one Croatian guy showing me his proficiency with the English words "fucking idiot" and "asshole." (I had originally claimed I was from New Zealand but upon realizing my utter ignorance of the country, like, what's the capital?, I decided to tell them I'd been to school in the US since I was little.)

This was all well and good, and I went home and showered and went to bed, until about 3am when I was hit with food poisoning, cramps, trips to the bathroom on the hour. Needless to say the family probably thought I was a rotten drunk. But they let me stay an extra day, and I lay in bed watching hours of CNN and National Geographic (british shipwrecks explored, katrina killings, and the ironic "hunting an epidemic: e coli" program). I felt well enough late in the afternoon to get back out and go back to th restaraunt, where I got fish instead of veal. The fish wasn't that good for a place 10 feet from the ocean, but my mom says it was probably the previous dinner that made me sick so perhaps it's good I didn't get the delicious veal again.

And that was Croatia.