On the road again

January 28, 2001 • Blog

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World » Ghana » Accra » Geekhalla

After creating our website over the weekend, the second week of our training was a quiet one. Wednesday we had a going away party in the Mass MoCa building, where Geekcorps has its HQ. Mass MoCa, short for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, is a former milling complex that was recently converted into a museum/cultural/office complex. The site is enormous and covers several acres. No wonder large parts are still empty. Part of the exhibition in the museum shows contemporary art, too large to show in the Guggenheim in New York and by far the most interesting piece of work is the ueberorgan. The, as it is presented, largest organ in the world is indeed a most impressive site. The room in which it is stored, a room almost the size of a football field houses the pipes, tubes and microphones in a very cluttered but massive fashion.

Another trip

The farewell party was enjoyable. Mainly because Geekcorps had joined forces in the past with Dewars for an ad campaign, large quantities of Dewars whiskey were available. Needless to say, I had a big hangover the next day and to top things off, I also had acquired a cold from somewhere. I was a happy man for not having to leave until three in the afternoon. Although our plane wasn't set to leave until eleven at night.

Since the van, that was supposed to pick us up from North Adams and drive us to JFK, had had an accident the previous day, it turned out our means of transport had been upgraded by the rental company. We were now enlightened with a 20foot long white limousine with driver. a long u-shaped couch, TV, video, whiskey, tanned windows and the interior lined with plastic light emitting tubes made for an interesting trip back. According to the driver: "You can do anything back there accept smoke. And any hard liquor is shared."

JFK was a big disappointment this time around. The airport truly is a disaster and seemingly could only have been built a complete idiot. The small corridors reminded me of the TV series St. Elsewhere, set in some hospital in the US. Cold, empty, ugly and boring passage ways. And, again, voices from hidden speakers warning for all sorts of things.

Short stop

When checking in, Tomas asked for a chair next to the emergency exit. Since he has a knee that occasionally gives him trouble, the extra legroom makes it possible to stretch his 1.95m body. The result was I also ended up next to the emergency exit, having to share three chairs with Tim. Three of the other geeks had three chairs to themselves, each. My nights rest didn't even come close to what they experienced.

Just before 12pm, the next day, we arrived in Amsterdam. Just after touchdown I immediately turned on my GSM, wanting to call my girlfriend to make sure we would meet before the next flight would take us to Accra. Less then a second after turning it on, my girlfriend already called me. I picked up the phone but was immediately stared down by cabin personnel since it is not allowed until the airplane has come to a complete close to turn on your mobile phone. I had to call back later.

It turned out that not just Vinca, but also my mom had come along to catch a glimpse of me. Still, the reunion was a joyful one, my mum being so kind to leave us two lovebirds alone for the remaining hour of my stay in Amsterdam. A pity, though, that the cold I had picked up in North Adams was now passed on to Vinca. Although I myself, after meeting up with my girl, felt I could take on the world again.

The second part of the trip, from Amsterdam to Accra, was much less spectacular. Although I explicitly had asked for a window seat, I ended up in the middle of the plane, again sharing three seats with Tim, although this time that was a bonus since almost all seats were sold, mostly to Ghanaians going back home. And one very noisy American, voicing his surprise at anything from the breadrolls to the Norwegian Salmon. When Tim, after getting more and more annoyed with the man, asked him to quiet down, he gave Tim a pat on the head and some belittling answer. As I said, a much less spectacular flight.

The Wall

During the flight a very friendly stewardess helped me in trying to deal with the cold I had. Some aspirin and chamomile did help me a lot and we both agreed that the heat of Accra would probably help me over my cold in no time. When I finally got out of the plane in Accra, it was as if walking into a wall of heat and moisture, similar to what I had earlier experienced in Egypt and Crete some years before. The differences being that, there, it had been summer. Here, it was January.

We were told to expect the most terrible crowd at the airport. Hundreds of people would be going to vie for our attention and try and get to carry our suitcases through customs and into their taxis. Interestingly contrasting with this image was the eventual quietness. From the moment we walked on the tarmac to the time, some 20 minutes later, where we were picked up by Stophe and Ebenezer, responsible for Geekcorps in Ghana, no one harassed us. We did have the hardest time to get Jason's and Jean's huge suitcases from the luggage claim to the taxi area, though. Both bags are big enough to firt a person.

Thirty minutes after meeting up, we were enjoying dinner in 'Home Touch', a Ghanaian restaurant on the way from the airport to Osu, the area in Accra where Geekhalla, the Geekcorps offices and our living quarters, are located. We were cautioned to try one typically Ghanaian dish, fufu, cooked cassava, resembling a very thick version of mashed potatoes, since this is a very heavy dish. And at this time of the day, already around 10pm, it wouldn't be the best thing to eat, so shortly before going to bed. Needless to say, almost everyone tried the fufu. Needless to say, most had a hard time sleeping later on. Some even tried the fufu with 'bushmeat', which means that the actual meat that ends up on your plate can be anything from antelope to elephant. Literally 'from the bush'.

Driving into Osu is like entering a fortified area of the city. Although the main artery of the area is Cantonments road, Oxford street in local parlance for its non-Ghanaian shops serving the expat crowd, many residential buildings exist here to. Most of these houses are surrounded by a large gate and, more often than not, have a guard patrolling around the clock, just like we have. Next to Geekhalla, there is the American Embassy visa section. Useful for pointing out to people were you live, since no one in Ghana uses streetsigns to give directions but only landmarks. And if you're wandering, there is no such thing as a postal system.

Geekhalla is a reasonably big building. Formally the offices of a defaulted airline, it contains a large living room, a reasonably kitchen and seven rooms. The rooms, although completely empty save for a bed, a desk and a cupboard, are spacious. The mattresses, made from soft pur foam, tend to shape themselves in accordance to your body: if you get up, you can still see what position you were in on the bed for several minutes.

I was lucky to confiscate the only double bed in the house, even though it was put in the smallest room. Jason and Tim were less lucky. Since we were eight, two people had to bunk together. This turned out to be them, ironically the two in the group that got on the least with each other. After a bit over two weeks, two weeks later as planned, Tim got his own apartment in some guesthouse not far from Geekhalla.
No work for now

We all assumed that, after arriving on Friday, we would be allowed to get acquainted with our surroundings during the weekend, after which we were expected to start working on Monday. The first week turned out to be something of a honeymoon. Not only did we have another whole week to get our stuff together, during that week Stophe took us out to a number of places, more often than not buying us lunch and dinner in very nice restaurants indeed. I guess that, based on their experiences with the first group, it wouldn't hurt to pamper us a bit.

On Saturday night we had a show in the Chinese built national theater. KSM, Ghana's most popular standup comedian did a show called 'politically incorrect'. Although part of the entertainment was in Twi, Ghana's primary local language (and the first language after English), the show was really fantastic. He truly was politically incorrect, as proven by the fact that he had had some run-ins with the law when he first performed his show, earlier last year. Now, right after the election and with Jerry Rawlings, the former head of state for twenty years, sitting in the front row of this performance, this particular show had a very interesting twist to it.

During the December elections, Rawlings' chosen successor and presidential candidate for the NDC, the National Democratic Congress, Mr. Atta Mills had only a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote as compared to the biggest opposition's candidate. However, since all opposition parties joined forces for the second round of voting, necessary because no one candidate received a majority, Mr. John Kufuor, again with a narrow margin, beat AttaMills. Thus marking an end to the twenty year rule of J.J. 'Juvenile Jesus' Rawlings.

History lessons

In 1979, as a mere flight lieutenant, Rawlings toppled the government, blaming them with bad management, corruption and more. Ghana had gone through turbulent times, since in 1966 Kwame Nukrumah, the first president of the first independent sub-Saharan state was thrown from power during a military coup. Rawlings, son of Ghanaian and Scottish parents, promised to give the power back to people and end corruption, also promising to have democratic elections as soon as possible. Surprising everyone, Rawlings actually did step down after half a year or so, after a democratically elected government assumed power.

Still, the party didn't last long. This newly elected government didn't achieve much better results than the previous ones and, in 1981, Rawlings again took over the government by force, again with the same goals as before but this time taking an interesting twelve years before initiating the next democratic elections. This time in 1992. The elections, Rawlings won with a large majority. Something he repeated four years later, when he constitutionally started his second and last term as president of Ghana. Now, AtaMills was not able to cash in on the success of his predecessor in last year's elections.

Success is, however, a large word for what Rawlings achieved in the last twenty years. He started out as something of a communist idealist but soon understood that, in order to save his country, he had to dance to at least some of the songs of the IMF and the World bank. Something that went with reasonably success in the eighties and the beginning of the nineties. When the century drew to a close, times had changed. Prices for the most important export goods in Ghana; gold, cocoa and oranges had sharply dropped, while many prices had risen, causing a record braking 50% inflation in 1999 alone!

When the NPP, the new party now in power, took over from the NDC this January, it turned out the the previous ruling party had spent much more money on numerous subjects than was previously assumed. Oil prices had been kept low by all means, resulting in a very much feared price hike, set to go in any day now. And, although promises had been made that no witch hunts would be started against the former government, Rawlings, his wife and a number of ministers have already come under some form of suspicion for money laundering, corruption and violence. The circle seemed to come round.

So we were sitting in the national theater. KSM was doing his show, 'Politically incorrect', and Rawlings was sitting in the front row. Much more money being spent by the former government was a very hot issue and KSM, in front of the whole audience, asks Rawlings what he had done with the money. Now, if you have never been in Africa, you can not imagine the way an African audience interacts with the artist on stage. A constant commenting, laughing, clapping, shouting, talking back. When KSM asked his question to Rawlings, the whole theater went dead quiet. This question was something no one expected. On a continent were people are still being hanged for much smaller offenses, this was almost too risky.

Rawlings laughed, gave a witty answer, everyone laughed, the show continued.

Later, KSM twice did a similar stint with Rawlings and his wife. Once, asking his wife what she thought when, in 1979 he took over control of the country, repeating the act two years later. She said she only heard it on the radio when it happened. The second time, she said, she only thought "Oh no, not again…"

The expat

During training in North Adams, Geekcorps put forward a rather interesting theory of what the mental state of a typical expat in a typical foreign culture is. Basically, this is represented, over time, by an upwards spiral with ups and downs. In the ups you tend to be very happy with the situation, enjoying your different surroundings. During the downs you want nothing but to go home. Slowly, you become more realistic, your downs get less and your ups slowly disappear into a general state of well being, the whole process taking up to several years. During the process, you also go through four stages: Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence.

What I remember from previous stints abroad, didn't seem to totally fit with what I was told here. Sure, I had some ups and downs, both in Budapest, where I lived for a year, and in Brussels, where I spent two years. However, the ups and downs didn't seem to be that extreme. Maybe I went with the flow enough to not bother. When I did feel down, I could always hop into a cinema, go to a typically expat bar or do something else that would take away my sorrows for the day. Then again, Hungarian or Belgian culture is nowhere near African culture. Only the future would tell how things would develop for me over here.

A ball and a game

On Sunday, Tim, Jason and Tomas got out of bed at 5:30am to get to the stadium in time to buy tickets. The national soccer team of the black star state, Ghana, was going to be up against the lone star state, Liberia, playing in the national football stadium in the center of Accra. Although I was really interested to see that match, I didn't feel like getting out of bed at that ungodly hour. Later ,that turned out to be a wise decision since the ticket booths only opened at 9am.

Early in the afternoon, some two hours before the game was supposed to start, Peter and I also checked out the stadium to see if it was still possible to get tickets. Luckily it was and we ended up sitting front row on the first ring, right in the middle of the field. Not bad at all, although the game was something of a farce. Ghana, on paper, is the stronger team, but they lost an appalling 1-3. Liberia was way to aggressive for comfort and only in the first part of the second half, when the black stars started playing coherently, were they able to score a goal. When, five minutes before the end of the game, the lone star was awarded a penalty, resulting in a score of 1-2, the game was considered over. People started moving out of the stadium, not aware that even a fourth goal of the day was in the pipeline.

Peter and me were sitting in one of the Ghanaian filled areas of the stadium. Imagine our surprise when, minutes before the start of the game, some hundred Liberians came into our section. As a European, very familiar with supporter violence, this seemed like the beginning of the end. Although these Liberians seemed more like African Americans; noisy, irritating, badly dressed, no escalation ensured. Sure, there was some shouting against both sides, but in the end, the hundred or so foreigners all found a spot amongst the Ghanaian supporters.

When the national anthem started playing, Peter and myself literally were dragged on our feet by some people sitting behind us. Earlier, stadium hawkers and helpers, as was stated on their shirts, had already started selling everything from yogurt ice-cream to cream crackers. However because more tickets were sold than people would fit in the stadium, it was impossible for these hawkers to actually go up to most people and exchange cash for
goods.

Apparently having experienced this before, a truly practical solution is used. First, the buyer throws his money at the hawker, second, the hawker throws the goods at the buyer. Sometimes across considerable distances, 15 meters or more. Amazing that money or goods never gets lost, or at least didn't while I was watching.

Another interesting procedure is actually getting tickets. You basically have two choices to get a ticket. Either you stand in line for an hour or so, to obtain your ticket at one of the regular booths. Or you give your cash to one of the men hanging around the queue-less booths, who then buy your tickets for you. The latter goes much faster, but is also a bit more expensive since you have to pay the man who gets you your tickets. It is not accepted to get your tickets yourself at these booths.

After the game of soccer, the whole team of geeks was to meet up at the 'Next Door'. A sea side restaurant on the outskirts of Accra. Being more special than you might think, Africans, or at least Ghanaians, don't have anything of a bond with the sea. They mainly use it as a garbage disposal, fishing pond and to attract tourists. The only Ghanaians you will encounter on the beach are fishermen.

Stophe told us the Next Door was 'right after Labadi Beach', a beach resort and hotel. Taking him up on his words, we took a taxi and were dropped off at Labadi Beach, to be welcomed by hordes of women asking if it had been a long time, how business was in London and how the wife and kids were doing. Later, we learned that the Next Door wasn't really
next door, but a couple of kilometers away. We walked the distance.

And after finishing up dinner and dancing at the Next Door, the night went on even longer. Since this was superbowl night, Tim just had to see the game. The New York Giants were playing the Baltimore Ravens and since Tim is something of a New Yorker, this did make some sense. We went over to one of the few sport cafes in Accra, Champs, to experience the Giants being humiliated with a final score of 34-7.

In the end, no one actually was watching the game, but was chatting away with others in the bar. Myself, I won a bottle of wine, betting with this American Peacecorps volunteer Lura, that the movie Armageddon was not called Asteroid.

This was not a bad start of three months in Ghana.

Training

January 21, 2001 • Blog

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World » United States of America » Massachusettes » North Adams » MassMoca

The group, that slowly grew to eight people on Sunday evening in North Adams, wasn’t your average, run of the mill, collection of people. At home, I find it reasonably difficult to find like-minded people from your own neighborhood. The whole reason why sport clubs, discussion groups and dating services exist; to find persons that share some interests you have too. This made it highly interesting to see that the people in this group not just had one or maybe two things in common, in fact, they had a whole slew of similarities, liking the same music, movies and sense of humor, having traveled much and, of course, coming from the same professional background.

Originally, out of the hundreds of applications for the second group of geeks going to Ghana, 12 were asked to join. Unfortunately, four had to cancel or decline the offer. Mainly because the time between the invitation and having to be in North Adams for training was too short; a mere two months. Imagine having to go to your boss and saying you will be away for three and a half months, in two months time. No wonder that no-one in the current group has the obligation to return to their previous job after coming back from Ghana. They either quit their job, or are are working independently as freelancers.

Out of the eight people remaining, only one is a woman. Three out of the four cancellations were from women, making it more difficult for Jean McDonald, the only remaining woman, to live with seven highly active and irritating geeks. Besides being the only lady, she is also the oldest, at 40, making the age difference between her and the youngest, Jean-Luc Martel a whopping 16 years. No bad words about Jean, though. If only for the fact that she brought a laptop with built in DVD player, which we used to watch The Matrix on Friday. To give an idea on what kind of group we were, the whole group of us eight and two more people from Geekcorps, had seen the movie, before we pressed play, a total of about 100 times. And of course, everyone’s a Trekkie.

Journeys

Another interesting observation is that all individuals in the group are very well traveled. Tim, by far, beats any of the other geeks by having lived on four continents and now living with his wife in both Amsterdam and New York. Tim has a very hard time not talking about his wife, Claudia. Even more so when talking to other girls, which is very intriguing, since I have heard a number of times that when a man talks to a woman about his wife or girlfriend, it means that he is sexually interested in the woman he is talking to. Not, however, that there are so many interesting women in Ghana, as we found out later. Sure, they most definitely have wonderful behinds, but that is all there seems to be.

The group has been put together very carefully by Geekcorps. The first group, G1, were technically and professionally very much the cream of the crop. However, when they were confronted with the cultural differences in the work ethic in Ghana, it turned out they could not, or with much difficulty, manage the strain they were enduring. And not just professionally, there are many differences in the way the western world and the African world do business, but in people’s private life, many differences exist to. For example having to go without water or electricity for a period ranging from a couple of hours to a couple of days is no exception, even in a city as cosmopolitan as Accra.

When I was asked to join G2, I was a little bit anxious that maybe I wouldn’t be able to match up to the professional qualities of the group, giving the merits of the people in the first group. Luckily enough, I guess, the professional qualities of the people in the second group are not as high as from the people of the first group. Clearly, however, the second group is a much more socially adapt and communicative group. And since one of the learnings from the first trip were that even halving your business expectations means expecting too much, the first group clearly was over qualified to work on the envisioned skills transfer.

1 word: culture

The first week of the training had only one theme: getting across that the culture we were going to be emerged in for the following three months was going to be radically different from what we knew at home. Still, something that also became clear during that first week, was that there are already substantial, although subtle, differences between American and western European culture, the American culture being an individualistic, sports-ridden consumption society where everything in society is happening on the background on the racial tensions of the past (and therefore present). It seems that a joke made early in the week holds more truth than initially thought: The Europeans in the group have to go through two culture shocks in this whole process; first by going to the States for two weeks, then by going to Ghana.

The guy who would be experiencing the least of shock happened to be European, though. Francois Legier, a Frenchman living in Louisiana previously has worked for a French version of the Peacecorps, spending two years in Benin, another country in west Africa and close to Ghana. Now, however, he has already lived in the States for close to five years. This guy understands European, American and African culture. Further, there Jason and Peter, two American programmers, Jean-Luc a French speaking Canadian and Tomas, the Dane.

Follow the leader

It is interesting to see that no true leader is coming forth from the group. At some point, after trying to build the website that would highlight our experiences in Ghana, Geekhalla.org, Jean-Luc made the remark that, where we are coming from, we are all leaders, yet that we make a mess out of it here. Only later did I realize that professionally we probably are leaders where we come from. Socially, however, it is a different matter, where we are much more artists than leaders. And artists do not lead nor follow but, at most, move to the background to avoid conflict, meaning that this group of geeks would have a difficult time to be able to work as a team if we were forced to do so.

In practice, this gave some problems when we were building Geekhalla.org, the site highlighting our experiences and the first group’s experience in Ghana. Although several people were willing to take the lead in building the site, no-one wanted to truly except anyone as the ‘man in charge’, resulting, for a large part of the first day in the group talking a lot and doing little. Still, the end result wasn’t all that bad, building a fully functional site in two days and smoothing the edges in the three subsequent days.

The two moderators during training were Ana Maria and Stophe. Ana Maria is the training manager for Geekcorps in North Adams and set up most of the two weeks of training. Stophe is the country director in Ghana for Geekcorps, being the one we have to go to if anything happens while we are there. Stophe, married to Shawn, earlier worked for Peacecorps and spent two years in Kazakhstan and one year in the Central African Republic. Interestingly, at least by American standards, Stophe is a very open, relaxed and laid back character.

The two founders of Geekcorps, Ethan and Elisa mainly remained on the background. Ethan very much focusing on PR and marketing. Elisa specializes in ‘social development’ and decides which countries are interesting for Geekcorps to support and what the actual possibilities are. As far as Ethan’s qualities are concerned, during our training PBS, American state television, stopped by and followed us for two whole days, we were interviewed by several newspapers and, when eventually in Ghana, CNN stopped by to check out some of our workplaces!

To celebrate our arrival in North Adams, Ethan had cooked a Ghanaian dinner on Monday. All volunteers and employees enjoyed quite a feast in Ethan’s gigantic house with wonderful view, on top of some hill a couple of miles outside of North Adams. Getting there, it snowed so hard that we had to leave the car at the bottom of the hill and walk our way up. Ethan, being one of the founders of Tripod, bought by Lycos in 1998 for a whopping $60mln, despite his millionaire status definitely hasn’t forgotten how to make a good dinner.

Here’s a list of who’s involved, besides myself.

Geeks

  • Francois Auger. This quiet and very friendly Frenchman has worked two years in Benin, as a PeaceCorps volunteer, before moving to the United States. He now lives in Louisiana and is only a year away from receiving his American citizinship, being married with an American.
    Francois specialises in GIS and webdesign.
  • Jason Varsoke From Lithuanian decent, Jason decided to keep the family decidedly European with his Croatian girlfriend. To take his mind of the coding, Jason is an extensive prose writer.
  • Jean MacDonald. The most seasoned in the team, Jean is a guinea-pig owner and is totally mad about her ‘Rosie’. Before becoming a web designer, she worked in book publishing and software localization.
    She now runs her private business. Her company is called well tempered.
    After being robbed on the streets of Accra, she stayed home a little bit more often, giving her time to work on her regular Accra dispatches.
  • Jean-Luc Martel. This smart and quiet Canadian is a good observer and has come a long way since starting in the IT industry only a couple of years ago, after no relevant education whatsoever. Jean-Luc easily beats the whole team in javascript, ASP and more. Meanwhile, he is very anti-Netscape.
  • Peter Beardsly. The very best thing about Peter might very well be that his father can make a perfect lasagna. Then again, Peter is a wonderrrrful client-side programmer.
  • Tim Harris. This extensive world traveler has visited all continents and has put many a country on his list over the years. And quite a lot professionally. Tim is a web designer, with a paper-based design background.
    Together with his wife, he runs digital do.
  • Tomas Krag. The Dane who can’t stop talking runs his private website at krag.org and never hesitates to tell anyone anything about what he thinks.
    Tomas, before everything, positions himself as a manager, although he has yet to figure out how to manage the Danish tax system.

Men behind the scene

  • Stophe Landis. The country manager in Ghana for Geekcorps, Stophe (short for Christopher) Landis has done two tours for the US PeaceCorps. One in Africa and, more recently, one in Kazachstan. From the offices of Geekhalla in Accra, it is Stophe’s task to make the stay of all the Geekcorps volunteers as pleasent as possible.
  • Ethan Zuckermann. After selling Tripod for $60million to Lycos Ethan figured something else had to be done with his life. After studying in Ghana for about a year back in 93-94, slowly the idea rose of doing something of a PeaceCorps for Techies, something that came of the ground when, together with Lisa Korentayer, he founded Geekcorps.
  • Elisa Korentayer. The other founder of Geekcorps, Elisa specialises in ‘development’ in its widest sense.

Just like in the movies

January 14, 2001 • Blog

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World » Iceland » Reykjavik » Youth hostel

To walk through Reykjavik is as if walking through a parallel universe, surreal. Everything is exactly like home, the Netherlands, but not quite. The feeling being emphasized by the fact that I arrived during dusk and took a small tour of the city in the evening.

Reykjavik

When landing, the buildings welcoming us more resembled pictures from the movie 'Ice Station Zebra' then an international airport. Additionally, when flying low past Iceland's coast, the only thing to see was a moonlike landscape, covered in snow.

Driving from the airport to the city center, I was constantly reminded of Murmansk, when I was there in the summer of 1999. The difference being that, here, the scenery was even more gloomy and the buildings were even more grey. The center of Murmansk, typically Scandinavian, is filled with pastel-colored houses. Many are not in good shape, but they are still pleasant to look at. The buildings of Reykjavik are just plain grey. However, it would probably have made a difference if I would have arrived during the day, in stead of in the evening.

Why did the city seem surrealistic? Reykjavik is no larger than the city of Albany, NY, but not only is the capital of a country, it also houses more than half of all people in Iceland. This also means that, when you do not live in Reykjavik, chances are your next door neighbor is living 10miles away. The language, Icelandic, is a Germanic language, like Dutch or German, but more resembles the ancient Norse language of a thousand years ago. One of the results is that in Icelandic, there are a number of letters that only occur in the Icelandic language. So when you try to read street signs you think you can, at least, read what it says. But time and again it turns out that you don't even know how to spell several of the letters in the words you are trying to say.

And you can pay with credit card everywhere. Really everywhere. When I arrived, I was scared for a minute (just after a dog sniffed my luggage at customs) that I wouldn't be able to get local currency to pay for my bus ride in to town. Not a luxury, since the Reykjavik city center is located about 50km from the airport. However, although I was carrying not one dollar or Icelandic Kroner, the airport not only had an ATM, I could also purchase my bus ticket by credit card. And not just my bus tickets. The hostel I could pay with my credit card, as the groceries at the supermarket, bakery or butcher, any drink in any cafe and the hot dogs at the street-corner hotdog vendors.

Icelandic prices are absurd. Much too high for comfort. Therefore, being able to pay with credit card is not only convenient, but also practical. The more you pay with plastic, the less you are aware of the prices you are paying. But what is expensive? Single fare airport-city center at $12, a Big Mac menu also for $12. One cup of tea in a cafe, $4. A simple pasta dish at a simple restaurant, just about $22. A Norwegian guy I had a short conversation with told me he was being paid in Norway, in Norwegian Kroner, but was living in Iceland. Norway is expensive, but this guy was complaining about Iceland's high prices.

Contrast

A week earlier, when I was still in Portugal, everything was much, much cheaper. In fact, the relative difference between Dutch and Portuguese prices is about the same as the relative difference between Icelandic and Dutch prices. So where Holland is quite expensive for people from Portugal, Iceland must be way out of their league! No wonder Bjork decided to move to London. London may be expensive for me, for her, it's a bargain.

The city is supposedly the most swinging Scandinavian city. The city is boring. Within the city limits, there is, count 'em, one building worth taking a picture of; a church, shaped in the form of a mountain of lava. Besides that, there are only a couple of statues, some lawns and one or two small churches. On the town square, you can easily throw a brick from one corner to the opposite corner. It's that small!

In summer, the city is supposed to be more lively. For one, for a relative small amount by Icelandic standards, you can get an on-and-off bus ticket that takes you on a tour around the island. The tourist attractions should also be magnificent in summer. And, of course, really everyone speaks English, something that is emphasized by the fact that the supermarkets are drowning in British produce.

For the two days I was going to be there, I just had to do at least one excursion. There were two interesting ones, that were also just a little bit payable, meaning under $75. One would take me to the 'Blue Lagoon", a hot water outside pool, fed by surplus cooling water from a local power plant. The water supposedly possesses healing powers. The second trip takes you along the 'Golden circle', showing you a dead volcano, the location of the old Icelandic parliament, Geysir, the mother of all geysers and more. I decided to take the second tour.

A tour

Shortly after Ingolfr Arnarson moved to the island, he called his newfoundland 'Iceland', basically to scare away potential visitors from settling, whereas in summer, it can get as hot as 30degrees Celsius. He seems to have been reasonably successful with this approach, since now less then 300.000 people live in Iceland. In the year 1900 Reykjavik had less then 500 people living there. Funnily enough, when Erik the Red got banned from both Norway and Iceland and moved to what is now Greenland, he called it Greenland just to more easily convince people to settle there. Needless to say, with Greenland's current 60.000 people, he has been a bit less successful in his set up.

The trip I eventually did, going along the Golden circle was expensive but worth it. The 350km through the uninhabitable Icelandic landscape alone was already quite impressive. The massive cascades, to some more beautiful than the Niagara were simply stunning. Being able to stand on both the American and European tectonic plates was a blast and watching Geysir sprout water was highly entertaining. In the evening, when back in Reykjavik, the day was topped off by two long green snakes of Northern light hanging in the night sky. Two girls on the tour had seen the Northern Light the previous evening, after driving to some mountain top, two hours away.

Last year, Iceland got 300.000 tourists. It is expected that, by 2010, the number will have reached one million. Remarkable, since all the foreigners I met in Iceland were only taking advantage of a stopover they had, when flying between the US and Europe. As were the other twelve passengers on today's tour. The unlucky number of 13 passengers not having a negative result on the tour itself: One of the Scottish passengers warned the driver when a car, right in front of us, without warning decided to stop in the middle of the road. We pretty narrowly escaped from a nasty accident. Almost no-one, including the driver was strapped in.

The unbelievably big apple

Taking the bus, from Reykjavik to the airport, got me talking to a constantly babbling Bostonian woman with facial hair enough to make braids with. On the plane, an Italian guy, studying in New York kept on talking about why Italy was better than the US and was still talking to me when I woke up.

Already before landing on JFK airport in New York City, the smile on my face was taking on epic proportions. Flying towards JFK took us over the whole length of Long Island, on a relatively low altitude. The sight, the island covered in lights from one side to the other, was magnificent. My heart just stopped short from throbbing in my throat, but it was exciting!

After seeing hundreds, if not thousands, of movies on the US and New York, this was finally going to be the first time I was actually going to be in the US of A. After visiting almost all European countries, generally after reading quite a bit about them and generally having a favorable attitude towards them, I realized that I actually did not have a very favorable attitude towards the USA. I don't know if this was because, for a large part, my image of the US had been formed by movies, the everyday news and American people I had met over the course of my life, but the feeling was there.

And now it was just about to happen. I was going to come ashore in the country with which you're confronted from the day you are born, like it or not. The country whose slang creeps in to your English. The apex of all countries, truly the country of endless opportunity. The country were modern history, present and future come together in one mix of energy that, until today, I had only seen from afar. I was going to land in the Capital of the World!

Surprise

But what a less than regular experience it was going to be. The airport terminal was older then the one at the international airport of Moscow, employees were trying to direct the flow of people more strictly than in any Scandinavian country and a large part of the American people I encountered seemed either fat or sick. Or both.

Something that I hadn't expected was my smooth flow through customs and immigrations. With my Iranian name, my Dutch passport and the face of a terrorist, something that I am not really used to. And I have to admit that the first real contact I had with a local was pretty good too. This American girl that also tried to get from the airport to Manhattan, where I had made reservations at a hostel, not only was very interesting to talk to, but also really listened to what I had to say. Although, eventually, she did fall asleep on my shoulder, she did not fit the classical American stereotype at all. Although, later in the week, this stereotype of the fat American who can only talk without saying anything did turn out to be reasonably correct.

It is remarkable to see how much, at least as far as I can see, Moscow and New York resemble each other. The 'seven sisters' from Moscow, seven gothic skyscrapers scattered around town, with an eigth stranded in Warsaw, without a problem could grace the New York skyline without falling out of step. Sure, the suburbs of Moscow are less wel kept than those of New York, but surely, they are also safer.

In true Babak-fashion did I race around town the first two days, to see as much of the city as possible. Strangely enough, already after two days had I seen most of the important sites in New York. One of two American girls that staid in the same hostel in Reykjavik asked me a couple of times what I was going to see in New York. After I read up on what there actually is to see, I told her where I was going to go. "I'm going to see the basic stuff, I guess", I said. She replied: "The basic stuff is all there is, really." Right.

My first view of the Statue of Liberty was from the top of the Twin Towers of the WTC. And what a meazly little statuette it is! 'Lady Liberty' was nothing but a small pin sticking out above the water at the under belly of Manhattan. Untill then, I was in doubt whether to visit her or not, but now, in addition to the fact that having to wait several hours to be allowed to get a ticket is no exception, I decided not to dive into this woman. You would almost think that the $100million that was spent in the 80s to renovate the statue was a waste of money.

Prices in New York aren't much lower as compared to Iceland. At Starbucks, you can easily spend $5 on a coffee, but at the same time you can get up to more than 3hours of websurfing for $1 at the EasyEverything on 42nd street. The totally skewed price scale is, at least for me, as incomprehensible as in Eastern Europe. Very cheap hardware and books, but almost unpayable housing and groceries.

I already mentioned earlier how easy it is to pay with credit card in Iceland. New York is not much different. Prices are high and many places, although no hot dog stands, accept plastic. I truly believe that this makes it easier to charge people higher prices, since people less easily realize how much they are charged. Then you have a second thing, where you are almost never sure how much you are paying until you have paid. Because in some places sales tax is included and in some places it isn't, it's always very difficult to tell whether you will have enough cash to pay for what you want. And then you sometimes also have to deal with tipping. The amount you tip, generally somewhere between 10% and 20% is up to you. The amount of sales tax isn't. Although it's totally unclear to me how it is calculated. When you buy $1 worth at EasyEverything, you have to pay $1.10. If you want $5 worth, you pay $5.40.
Here and there

On my first day in New York, I went to the NYSE, the New York Stock Exchange, and arrived just in time to hear the opening bell ring. According to the tour guide, one of the two most seen moments on television. The other is the ringing of the closing bell. Actually watching the people move on the trading floor made me realize why casinos are so very popular. In effect, they are no more than a simplified version of the stock exchange.

And I also went to Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, giving me really an unsurpassed view from the 'roof of the world'. Although, when I went to the Empire State Building in the evening, the view at night was even better. If you ever wandered, the long antenna on the top of the building was made for Blimps to 'land'.

Quite a number of museums in New York are also very worthwhile visiting. Sadly, they had closed one floor of the 'MoMA', the Museum of Modern Art. TheMetropolitan museum of art, the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Public Libary are really wonder full to visit. The Guggenheim museum has a fantastic building, but the exposition on Armani clothing was a bit of a bummer, although they had great Jazz on Saturday. And the five minute show in the Museum of Natural history was, unfortunately enough, presented by Jodie Foster.

As far as typically American food goes, the street corner hot dog was much better as I anticipated, but the more than a foot long pastrami sandwich was a bit too much. The thin was filled with, at least that was what it seemed like, a pound of roast beef!

Observing

The hostel where I was staying was a bit of a dump, although I should have guessed that from its $20 price tag. By far, this hostel on W 88th street easily was the worst hostel I have ever encountered. You had to share one bathroom with 15 others, whom with you also shared a room. You weren't allowed to take your bag up to your room and the drizzle that was the shower only ran on one temperature, beyond your control. Besides one girl from New Zealand, staff was almost rude. No wonder this hotel focussed on Foreign people below 30. If you ever had been there once, you would never return. After my first night I searched a bit for other hostels in the area, but the cheapest alternative I came up with would have costed an interesting $35 per night. Just a little bit above my budget.

One thing that is really fun to do in New York is just to walk around. It is amazing to see how much people look like as if they just walked right of a movie. Not that they resemble actors, it's more like they resemble roles that actors played. One of the receptionists from the hostel is Rollergirl from Boogie Nights; the man sitting next to me in a Chinese take away was Richard Attenborough from Miracle on 31st street; A neighbor of the hostel is Tom Hanks from Philadelphia and I bought a compact flash card reader at CompUSA from Lester Burnham from American Beauty. You could play a game just guessing who is which character from what movie.

The second thing is that people talk as if they are still right inside a movie. Every conversation seems to be straight from a movie. People also need to be very expressive, move a lot with their hands, make emotional faces, and so on.

On Friday night I literally walked into a movie. I was looking for a bar where they would have some stand up comedians but in one back room of some bar, seating about 50, a video projector showed a movie of two talking old guys, sitting on some bench, somewhere in New York city. After each short, which lasted 10 to 15 minutes, the two guys from the movie, who were also part of the audience, would comment on what we just had seen on the screen. Both them speaking on the screen and in the room was totally inaudible. I obligingly laughed when the crowd laughed.

Short observations

According to the Lonely Planet, about 15% of population of New York is black. Remarkably, that is absolutely not what you would suspect when walking around town, taking the subway or entering any store. Based on these places, you would think a more accurate assumption would be somewhere between 50% and 90%. Where are all the whites?

I walked, for half an hour or so, through a part of Harlem, on my way to Yankee stadium and the streets looked exactly like in the movies. The poor kids dressed in caps, hat, sports clothes, sneakers, ghetto blaster were everywhere, making their moves. To fit in as much as possible, I tried to be as cool as I could.

Yankee stadium, according to some the most famous arena after the colosseum in Rome, is a real cow. Just like Flushing Meadows, it's nothing but a grey slab of concrete in the middle of nowhere. Close to Harlem, some more interesting sights are a very large gothic cathedral, Colombia university and America's biggest mausoleum. The mausoleum, of course, is for some long forgotten war hero and alive with almost irritating patriotism.

When I returned from Yankee stadium, I was waiting at one of the metro stops. A mother with two kids came and sat next to me. One of the two kids, a boy of about 8 years, sat right next to me and immediately asked where I was from.

At first, I figured the little fellow had a very good nose for tourists, but only later did I understand that what he meant was, where I was from before I lived in New York. Since his nephew was getting French in school, he assumed I must have been French too and not, like him, Colombian.

The kid had come to the US three years ago, after his father had came here earlier and was now working in Boston, after having started in New York. When I mentioned I was going to Massachusetts the next day, the guy almost radiated when it became clear that that was the same state as where Boston was. It was funny to see how much the little guy had to tell, each time, when struggling with his English, rubbing his nose with his left index finger, as if to magically rub the words to the surface, under the chanting of the magic words 'ehm… ehm…'.

Something that really surprised me was the water level in American toilets. The first time I noticed this, I figured the toilet I wanted to use must have been broken, but when I noticed all toilets suffered the same fate I understood this was standard practice. The only reason for this that I could think of, is that this way, a cleaning lady does not have to scrub shit of the inside from a toilet bowl. Still, it is not very convenient that, if you don't watch out when you shit, the water jumps up, splashing at your ass and, what is even worse, your dick hangs in the water. I was unable to verify if toilets in places more frequented by blacks have a lower water level.

To take the train to Albany, NY, from where I would be picked up to go to North Adams, the location of the Geekcorps office, I had to get a ticket from Penn Station. I went there in the afternoon to buy my ticket, to make sure I would have no problem getting there in time in the evening. When I entered the train station, it felt like walking into either 1984 or THX 1183. Subtly hidden microphones were constantly blurting out messages for the general public: "Please, help us recycle waste.", "We are constantly on the lookout for…", "If you would like…" It was almost scary, since it suggested a totalitarian state, trying to keep everything under control. However, when I tried to go to the public bathroom at Penn Station, an older man entering one of the stalls just in front of me started making heavy vomiting noises, without anyone seeming to notice. I decided to try my luck elsewhere.

Something that positively surprised me was the physical size of Americans. Sure, Americans are fat, but they were a lot less fat as to what I expected. Not once did I encounter anyone in the subway, who needed three seats to sit down. It seems like fifty years of thigh master is finally paying off.

One thing that is nice, though, is the large number of performing artists hanging around in the subway stations. Some are really, really good. I bumped into an Italian singer and a Middle Eastern boy playing the xylophone. Both were very good, but the boy was much more, simply magnificent. He played like a madman, but with so much feeling it was
unbelievable. You can listen to recordings from both artists.

Although Americans are much less fat than I expected, they are highly individualistic, superficial, noisy and emotional. And most look like they're sick. Almost half of all Americans in New York wears a walk man, excluding themselves from the outside world. This not only goes for youngsters, but also for older people. And then, everyone is also moving and swinging to the silent noise coming from their head phones, totally oblivious from what's going on around them. And Americans keep on talking, without saying anything or listening. I talked to several people while in New York, but I only had conversations with foreigners. The girl I talked with just after arriving in New York was from Australia.

It also came almost as a shock to me that 'service' was far more difficult to find as expected. This country that, as I assumed, was almost all about service, is a mess in that sense. Most shopkeepers are just plain rude. When I talked to an English couple at a jazz performance at the Guggenheim, we concluded that currently Western Europe has a clear edge over the US.

Going North

And then it became sunday evening, time to go on. At Penn station, it wasn't very difficult to find my fellow geeks, although in stead of three, we turned out to be four. Myself, Thomas from Denmark, Tim, an American living in Amsterdam and Jean from Oregon. Getting to know each other went reasonably smoothly and it soon became clear that the group was going to consist of like minded people. Never a bad thing. From Albany, we were driving to North Adams by Stephany, where we met the other volunteers, Francois from France, living in Louisiana, Jean-Luc the Canadian, Peter from Vermont and Jason from New York. Let the training begin.

The rain in Spain…

January 07, 2001 • Blog

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World » Spain » Sevilla » Alcazar

The almost obligatory new year's sea dive, on which Vinca and I also had agreed, eventually was only done by Irene en Nico. During the night a really terrible storm had set in, where Vinca and I continuously wandered when exactly the windows would finally come down from their sockets, and because of that we had decided not to dive. Although it turned out that, the next day, not only was the storm not as strong as it had been during the night, the wind was also a warm wind.

Locals, that is, Portuguese people, seem to celebrate new year inside. The streets where exceptionally empty, although many Portuguese had come from around Monte Gordo to spend the weekend at one of the parties the hotels were giving. This mainly meant eating till after 12 and then dancing, mostly to classical music.

After witnessing Nico and Irene's morning dive, Vinca and I went to the little town of Tavira, a quaint little town where we spent some time drinking espresso in a nice little tavern. You can listen to what is was like there. Giso and Jaap staid in bed, after a night of heavy drinking in the 'NOX'.

Vroom vroom

Already before we left, we figured it would make sense if we would rent a car and drive around the Algarve a bit. We expected Monte Gordo to be less than very spectacular. Something that was also confirmed by a group of travelers that was in the same van with us, being picked up at the airport after arrival. They had rented a car.

However, we were with a total of six people. Not amount that easily fits in one car. At first, to keep the price down, we considered renting a Fiat Palio. A reasonably spacious car, however not built to hold 4 people in the back. Additionally, I had had a quite interesting adventure with a Fiat Palio a couple of years ago, where the window next to the passengers seat almost without warning fell off the car. While driving. A Palio it was not going to be.

A second option was a very expensive mini van. In stead we opted for twice the smallest car possible, a Fiat Punto. Not only turned this car to be reasonably cheap, just about $20 per person, excluding gas for a total of three days. It also is a very nice car to drive. And we now had the opportunity to split the group in two, if the need would arise.

Sevilla

Tuesday we went for Sevilla. The double 'l' you pronounce as a 'j', so when Nico, when later ordering a piece of chicken in some restaurant ordered a 'pollo' (with the double 'l', he not only received the chicken, but you could hear staff making fun of him in the back of the restaurant.

Unfortunately, there is no highway between the Spanish-Portuguese border and Huelva, a Spanish town, some 80km after the border and some 70km from Sevilla. In stead you get a very busy secondary road, which resulted in the trip to Sevilla taking much longer than planned. The very reason why Vinca and I later in the week decided we would not go to Cordoba, another Spanish town, even further away than Sevilla. We still, however, could consider us lucky, that the very nasty looking Guarda Civil at the border didn't stop our car at seeing my terrorist-like face.

The host of EXPO92 has two must-sees within it's city borders. The first is the Gothic cathedral, according to the Guiness book of records the largest in the world. Which is something interesting altogether, since later, in New York City, I was to come across another Gothic cathedral that claims to be the largest gothic cathedral in the world and also the largest cathedral in the world after the St. Peter in Rome and some creation in Ivory Coast.

Either way, the cathedral is quite a sight and gives you a very nice view of the city of Sevilla. If it's not the biggest, it is still very impressive and also has a very interesting history attached to it. Originally, on the site of the cathedral, there used to stand a mosque, built by the conquering Mores, at the beginning of their conquest on the Iberian peninsula. When, finally after some 500 years, Christians took over from the Mores, they raised the mosque to the ground, except for its minaret, which they used as the bell tower for the newly to be constructed cathedral.

Besides the interesting history, the church also probably harbors the remains of Columbus. Probably, since although there is an impressive grave for him in the church, no one is really sure whether his remains didn't get misplaced somewhere in the Caribbean.

The other must see in Sevilla is, what is called, 'Alcazar'. A name that, even after having been to Sevilla, only can remind of the general from the Tintin comics. The guy that tries to stage a coup in some unnamed South American country and ends up as a knife throwing artist.

Large parts of Portugal and Spain were part of the Morish empire, during the middle ages. In Spain, in Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla and in Portugal along the whole Algarve, many reminders of that era still exist. One thing in which the Mores differed from most occupying forces, is that they let Christians continue them practicing their faith. Alcazar was the location where Morish and Christian nobles had their luxurious houses with very luxurious gardens.
Lisboa

On Wednesday, Nico and Irene went for a bike ride around Monte Gordo. Something which was rewarded with Nico enjoying a flat tire along the way. Although the guide, at first, stubbornly refused to believe the tire was really flat and had it pumped up several times before he finally gave in. The kids, Vinca, Giso, Jaap and myself, took one of the two cars and drove to Lisbon. Again, a large part of the journey took us across secondary roads, where trucks and busses were keeping our speed down. And to make us even more joyous, just before arrival it started to rain badly, which only finished way after we returned.

Lisbon supposedly is one of the 'undiscovered gems' of Europe and I have to admit that that seems to be true, even though we didn't have much time to explore the city, since Giso and Jaap already wanted to head back after a mere three hours.

It is a fact that the Tower of Belem, the church and convent in the district of Belem, the old citadel, the small and zigzagging streets of the old town, the largest suspension bridge in Europe and the commercial center do give Lisbon the air of a Paris, London or Rome. And one that has largely still not been discovered by tourists at large. Prices are, although slightly higher than on the Algarve, very reasonable and since, without a hassle, you get large chunks of hash offered to you in the streets, what else could you ask for? A Jesus-on-a-mountain, just like in Rio? Well, it's got that too!

We want Moor

Earlier in the week, Vinca and I had taken up the plan to drive to Cordoba, in Spain. However, since the trip would take us first to Sevilla, we decided not to go there. The secondary road up to Huelva would simply take too long. Earlier in the week, the rest of the group had declared that in stead of going to Spain, again, they would rather drive around a bit in the Algarve. As it turned out, Vinca and I staid in the Algarve, visiting Silves and Estoi, the rest of the group went to Ayamonte, just across the border with Spain.

Silves once was a Morish settlement but is now nothing more but a small, quaint, friendly town, not so much touched by tourism. Estoi, some 20km north of Faro, is nothing more than two streets converging but has two sights worth mentioning. The first is a totally not interesting dug up Roman ruin, for which you have to pay to see it. The second is a very neglected 16th century garden from some rich landowner. The garden is free to walk in and is quite impressive, even now, after so many years of neglect.

The day basically was a day of chilling were we spent a large part of the day drinking coffee and, later, port in several of the bars of Silves and Estoi. Not that Portuguese bars are 'cosy' in a European sort of way. All bars, cafes, restaurants and most shops too, have one or more TVs in the waiting area. Not so much to please the customers, since they don't really seem to be watching that much. If anyone, it seems to be to please the workers.

There and back

And then Friday came about again. Vinca and I had the opportunity to sleep late and spend our day doing nothing much more than chilling. The rest of the group was to be picked up at 4:30am, to be driven to the airport. Our bus wasn't coming until 3:30pm. Not that we had an easy trip back. After arriving at Faro airport, we were told that our plain had a two and a half hour delay. In the end, that turned out to be a four hour delay. To compensate us for our troubles, the airline gave us a snack voucher. The snack voucher gave us a cheese sandwich, egg on a role and a small bottle of coke. Great. But we did get to say the Lethal Weapon version of Mel Gibson!

Besides the not so great trip back, this type of vacation clearly caters to older couples who want to encounter as little uncertainties on their holiday as possible. They want to be able to speak their own language, they want to eat their own food. Literally, to them it must feel as if they really haven't left home.

That's also why we were welcomed in Monte Gordo by a guide from our travel organization. The very friendly lady even wanted to explain, in as much detail as humanly possible, how to use an ATM in Monte Gordo ("And then you set the language…") Of course, she also showed up at the airport. It was a pity though she didn't know of our delay before we were picked up at our hotel. Luckily enough, the bottle of whisky I had bought when flying in to Faro was still one quarter full, which gave me about an hour to relax.

Ready… Get set… Go!

Eventually we went to bed, Saturday morning at 4am. Sunday afternoon at 1pm I was already in a plane going to Reykjavik. For the first time in years I was getting a normal meal on the flight and, a first for me, the plain was equipped with LCD displays. A pity they were showing old episodes of Frasier, the problem not so much lying in that they were 'old', but that they were 'Frasier'.

After our four our delay at Faro, everything fell perfectly in to place. When I arrived at my gate on Sunday, I had still 10 minutes left to drink a coffee. I couldn't have been there any minute earlier. That is, of course, not true if I would have slept less than the four and a half hours that I did.

Saying goodbye to my Love was more difficult for me as I expected. It seems that, because of the busy weeks and months prior to leaving, I hadn't really had the time to consider the consequences of us not seeing each other for so long a time. Only when on Saturday night, we lay together in bed, after tying together too many loose ends during the day, did it slowly dawn on my what really was going to happen over the coming months. And I didn't like the prospect at all of not seeing my baby for four months at least.

Morning did eventually come around and we staid in bed just a little bit longer to enjoy each other just that little bit more. Eventually, four wet eyes later, we did manage to say goodbye for now. Just before finally getting up, Vinca asked me where her box was. "Which box?", I replied. "The box in which you will take me with you!"

White Christmas

December 31, 2000 • Blog

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World » Portugal » Monte Gordo » beach

I spent most of Christmas at my girlfriend's. Her mom, Remke, being both a university professor and a great cook prepared the most wonderful meals for the Christmas dinners. And to top it all of, it even had started to snow on Christmas eve, making for a something of a white Christmas. On Christmas day, Vinca (my girlfriend) and I, walked around Leiden a bit, to try and get something of that 'white Christmas feeling'.

The weather became worse (or better, depending how you look at it) as the week moved on. On Wednesday, the layer of snow covering the land had grown into as much as 10cm in places. To make matters worse, I had a minor accident with my car on Wednesday, just before picking up a laptop. I had to bring the car to the garage though.

Lap top

One of the managers of OGD Software, an, as you've probably guessed, software company, was so kind as to borrow me a laptop for my time abroad. However, the laptop wasn't working anymore. That is, if I could get it to work, I could keep it. Unfortunately, I couldn't., although a friend of mine, Nico, was so kind as to try to get it to work during my stay in Portugal.

Later, after returning from Portugal, Nico confirmed the suspicion I had in relation to why the laptop wasn't working. It seemed the processor hadn't been adequately cooled and broke down because of that. If anything, I now have a non working laptop to give me comfort.

Meanwhile, the tickets for Portugal had arrived. To refresh your mind, we (my girlfriend and I) were going there because we were invited by my parents. They hoped to get all the kids to go to the Algarve with them. Because we weren't sure whether Vinca would have the time to join, Vinca and I booked our tickets much later. Although we all flew on the same day, my parents were to arrive on Friday, in the evening, going back the next Friday in the morning. Vinca and I were to leave Friday morning, to return the next Friday in the evening. All in all, almost two whole days of an extra vacation, which proves that all good things come to those who wait.

The trip to Monte Gordo was fairly uneventful, if not very inconvenient. We had to get out of bed at 3:30am, to be picked up by a cab at 4:10. Since the cab still hadn't showed some 15 minutes later, it was a good thing that we, accidentally, had awoken Vinca's mum. She was already trying to start her car when, finally, the cab did come. At Schiphol, I was mildly surprised that after the body shop, the chocolate shop and the toy shop, they now also had a cheese counter.

Monte Gordo itself was very much what we expected of it. And we didn't expect much. The village, if you could call it that, was not much more than a large collection of gray colored concrete hotels. All menus from all restaurants where available in multiple languages. English, French, German and Dutch being just a couple of the available selection.

As these things go, to a location and a vacation style such as this, older couples flock to it as flies to a fire. At some point, to have some form of entertainment, Vinca and I played a game, where the winner would be the first one to spot a second couple of our age. After some 30 minutes, we gave up.

At the local tourist office, I asked if the new year was celebrated in Monte Gordo with some special kind of event. The reply was plain and simple: "We have bars, discos…". "But is anything organized, especially for the new year?" I tried to ask again. "Well", she said, "In Villa Real", a small but real town some 5km from Monte Gordo, on the border with Spain, "there will be a party in the street. If the weather is good." So, I asked whether she new anything about the weather for new year's eve. "Not so good"…

Surprise

Although we had rented an apartment, breakfast was included in the price. Still, the fully equipped kitchen we had to our disposal invited us to go shopping for goodies. At the local supermarket we tried, a large guy was filling up his overcoat with bottles of J&B whiskey, looking at the counter to make sure no-one saw him. Strangely enough, he didn't see me, nor Vinca, since we approached from the other direction. First, I bumped into him, later Vinca. Both on purpose. Without being disturbed, he kept on filling his jacket. When later, with much difficulty, we tried to tell the Portuguese shop-owner that this guy was stealing his liquor supply, we stopped when the thief was walking past us. The reply of the shopkeeper? "Do you want meat?"

In the evening we went to the hotel my parents had booked. I asked one of the clerks what their expected time of arrival would be. "Nine o'clock. But they fly Martinair, so it could be 10, 11, who knows!" Fine. Luckily, the transfer from Faro airport did arrive at nine and we were happily united. Not a moment to soon, that is, because since Vinca had used her GSM to check the time earlier in the evening, we had arrived at the hotel an hour earlier as planned. In Portugal it's one hour earlier as in the Netherlands.

Finally for some dinner. And very soon we understood the usefulness of the fully accepted Portuguese practice of ordering half a portion for dinner. If you don't open your mouth, you get a German sized portion of Spanish food at Greek prices. After dinner, Vinca and I went for a role on the beach.
Putting the jaws together

After an extensive walk on the beach on Saturday, walking from Monte Gordo to Vila Real, we all joined for dinner. Waiting, outside, for a table to free up, one of the patrons, who was Dutch and had eaten at the restaurant, just had to tell Nico that he should take the piglet. Something they normally never serve, but was truly delicious. Nico took the piglet.

And was very satisfied with it. Although staff tried to make it clear they had only one specific piece left, Nico had to get the piglet on his plate. He only came back from his decision after he bit in a piece of jaw, concluding he had already eaten an ear and an eye.

Celebrating the new year wasn't as thrilling as it could have been. Not that it was bad, it was just a little bit boring. The group simply was too divers and made it difficult to have a very good time together. Nico and Irene preferably watching some game show or cabaret on the telly, Jaap en Giso wanting to go for a (large) number of beers on the town and Vinca and I just wanting to 'go' some place together. However, some Yahtzee and Scrabble pulled us through the evening and we watched the Germans celebrate the New Year an hour early on television.

Preparations

December 24, 2000 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Bi-Cycle office

It wasn’t like I had an absurd amount of time to prepare for my months abroad. Mid November did I get the confirmation I was going to spend three months in Ghana the next year. I was to be in the US for a training Mid January. I already had planned a holiday, leaving right after Christmas, I was going to quit my job by the end of the year and I had to make sure that the company I also had set up myself was financially safe.

Then I had to get immunization shots, malaria pills, a new passport, an international driver’s license, I was coming close to publishing a book, I was busy with a webdesign project for a customer which was taking too long and to top it all off, my girlfriend demanded truckloads of attention. And who was I to refuse that?

On Wednesday I had gotten my last three shots. Right after, I went for a round of fitness, which wasn’t the most enjoyable experience of my life. The stuff that was shot in my leg felt like it started to move to both legs and my bum. Luckily the fitness center wasn’t that busy; I had the idea I was running like a cripple.

Serenade

My last day at work, celebrated with a long lunch, was on Thursday. After a good lunch at a local Italian restaurant, I had to pick up the tickets for going to New York in January. When I came back at the office, I fell into a trap. My co-workers had prepared a serenade, for my leaving. I have to admit that it was very funny. Not just the guys at the Rotterdam office, but also people from Sweden and the US, who had phoned in, joined in the serenade.

Friday a christmas dinner with some buddys from university. A surprise I got into bed before 4am.

Picture perfect

Earlier, I had tried to get a bit of sponsoring through my ‘old boys network’. I was partially succesful, securing a couple of hundred guilders in the process. My primary objective with getting sponsoring was being able to pay for a digital camera, a digital storage medium (such as a laptop) and a digital audio recorder.

The money I had received was barely enough to buy a cheap digital camera. I wanted a good one though, so I chipped in a bit of my own cash to get me a Canon Powershot Pro70 at a bargain price of $600 from a local harddware dealer. I must say I am very impressed with the camera. Even indoors the camera does good work, as you can judge from the try-outs.
Now, if only I could get myself a laptop.

GlobalJungle

December 18, 2000 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Woongroep Buitensporig

From early 2001, I worked for a few months, through Geekcorps in Ghana. Before heading out, I spent new year’s with family in Portugal.

Why?

All this might be interesting, I hear you say, but what might be the reason for this absurd combination of travel literature and web design?

Luckily, it’s not that hard. I like to think of myself as a traveling man. In practice, it means that the traveling is very often interrupted by large stints of the plain old office job. However, I had plans, mid 2000, to change all that.

Making a plan

Already when I still studied at the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands, a feeling had been creeping up on me that I might very much feel like starting my own company. Living in the Netherlands, on the wrong side of the Internet Boom, time wise and geographically, I had no idea what my company would do. I started working for Procter & Gamble, in Brussels, Belgium.

It soon became clear that Procter & Gamble wasn’t my perfect environment. Sure, I was working in international teams filled with intelligent people, but a couple of things felt wrong. Not only was the incentive to innovate missing, many (older) people mainly seemed primarily to focus on how they could cover their ass. These people were working in a company that had a global impact and they themselves couldn’t comprehend even a fraction of a global picture. Nor, as it seemed, did the company as a whole.

When two friends of mine, who had started a company back in 1996, told me they were now looking for their first men for hire, I jumped in and became the first employee of Bi-Cycle.

Making plans

At Bi-Cycle, my task was twofold. As salesman, I had to cover the UK; as a web developer, I had to design, build and implement the company’s website. Both were rather interesting, but at some point I concluded that selling the company’s software package to large players in the process industry wasn’t my ‘thing’. When it was hinted at that I was going to be offered a position in our upcoming office in the US, having to focus on sales, I figured it was time to move on again.

Feelings of starting my own company started creeping up on me again. In the past couple of years, I had grown a passion for web design and web development, something I really enjoy to do, still. I was going to try and make a living as an independent web developer

An other side of the coin

Already for years I believe that, as a more fortunate member of our society, I should spend time building opportunities for the less fortunate or support people in a way that can improve their life.

I have been a blood donor for almost 10 years now and when I was living in Belgium I was a volunteer on a suicide helpline. Only after touring through South Eastern Europe for a week and building a house together with Habitat for Humanity, for a married couple in Beius, Romania, did I realize that there is so much more to be done in the world where I can make a difference.

I had decided to finish my job at Bi-Cycle come December 31, 2000. In October I received an invitation from a company called Geekcorps to do a phone interview for their next project, in Ghana. Early November, I was asked to join. In order to go, I had to be able to be in the US mid January 2001.

Because

It was an easy decision; being a freelance web designer just would have to wait a little bit longer. And whatever, I was supposed to be doing ‘my thing’ in Ghana anyway. This was going to be like a six month holiday. Or not quite, this was going to be like a six month holiday, where I would learn a lifetime.

Get involved

If you’re interested to do similar work as I did in Ghana, you can start by looking at the Geekcorps website. You can also look at similar organizations, such as VSO and Habitat. However, if you ‘just’ want to get involved in some humanitarian plan, chances are that your neighborhoods or city is filled with organizations looking for passionate individuals like yourself

NOF2 – North of France 2

October 15, 2000 • Blog

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World » Luxembourg » Luxembourg » Grund

It's always nice to get presents for your birthday. However, I find that a journey almost always leaves a more lasting and satisfying impression than most gifts can. That's why my girlfriend and I decided that, in stead of giving each other presents for our birthdays, we would take a long weekend off, drive around a bit, and chill. My birthday was on September 9th, Vinca's birthday on October 25th. The weekend before her birthday we went away, visiting both Lille and Luxembourg.

Originally, we had bigger plans, visiting more cities and maybe even stopping over in Paris. In the end, it turned out that Lille and Luxembourg are two very good cities to chill. As specially Luxembourg is a wonderful place. I have to admit we were quite lucky with the weather, the sun shining almost constantly, which made it easier for us. And nature looked simply brilliant, the colors of autumn making this financial capital of Europe look like a 3D image from a fairy tale.

So did anything spectacular happen? Well, not really, we basically chilled a lot. Although something worth mentioning did happen. When we enjoyed Mussels-all-you-can-eat, at a restaurant in Lille, the place got fired up a bit, when a mouse decided it was the right time to make a tour of the restaurant. We got free drinks afterwards as compensation.

Divided road

October 07, 2000 • Blog

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World » United Kingdom » Belfast » Shankill road

Most of the clashes in Belfast happen around two streets. These are Shankill Road and Falls Road. One street is filled with Protestants, the other with Catholics. The one favoring staying with the UK, the other wanting to become part of Ireland.
Walking down Shankill Road really was a remarkable experience. The closer we came, the more houses had bars for the window. In Shankill Road itself, all street lights were also carrying flags to show off the identity of the people living there. And many walls were filled with paintings, commemorating the dead or the cause they had been fighting for. This, combined with the streets being almost completely empty of people made for an eerie experience.

Border guards

There's one street connecting Shankill Road and Falls road. The street is completely fenced off and, in the middle, a number of stalls, although not manned, make for a makeshift border patrol. A gristly testament to what has happened in this area and might happen at any moment again.
Falls road, the Irish Catholic street seemed a little bit more lively.

End of story

It was interesting to see the headquarters of the political branch of the IRA, Sinn Fein, although it was a pity to see it closed.
Later in the day we took a bus back to Dublin, spending another night chilling away in this most friendly city. The next morning, unfortunately, our plane did leave in time, leaving us no free ticket to use up later this time.

Play

October 06, 2000 • Blog

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World » United Kingdom » Belfast » City Hall

The weather in Belfast was really beautiful. We spent several hours on one of the benches in front of Belfast's city hall, lounging in the sun. As you can judge from the picture, we weren't the only ones. Mainly schoolchildren or university students were playing music or taking a nap in the sun.
Remarkably, although I expected otherwise, we didn't notice much from the string of problems that have plagued Northern Ireland for the last couple of decades. Everything seemed to be peaceful and quiet and all the people we met and spoke to seemed to be friendly and open.

The gathering

For most of the time that Joost and I were enjoying our fine spirit and the sun, two small kids were collecting leaves in large plastic bags. Most probably, it was their first time ever doing so, since very often, the bag with collected leaves would topple over and, without hesitation, they would start anew with fresh spirit. Or maybe these kids were already used to pointless repeating processes, such as the one that's plaguing Northern Ireland for the past time.

Chill

We spent an expensive but fun night out in Belfast. First a good meal in a nice Italian restaurant, then a good beer in a regular pub. To topple the night of, we went to a student party. At least we thought so. The 10pound price tag seemed to be a little hefty.

When going back to the hostel, the house just next to the hostel seemed to have a party. All students from either Belfast or around, they invited us up for a drink. I talked for some time with one guy from Portadown. The first thing he said was: "Really, it's not that bad over there."
The next morning, we came closer to the Northern Ireland 'issue'.

In Sickness and in Health

October 05, 2000 • Blog

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World » Belgium » Charlerois » Airport

Around Easter this year, together with a group of friends of mine, I had visited Ireland by taking a cheap flight with Ryanair from Charlerois airport in Belgium.
When it turned out that, when traveling back, no more seats were available on the flight we had booked seats on, we were offered a later flight and a free ticket to a later flight to Dublin from Charlerois. Since the tickets were only valid until October 21st, time was running out when, early October, we still had those tickets in our pockets.

So do you, in fact, have a choice when you've got a free plain ticket to cash in? Of course not. Though part of the group we went with in April felt different. Out of the 5 people that went with Easter, only myself and Joost went now. Still, I didn't really care. we were going to have a good time.

Epilogue

July 26, 2000 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Woongroep Buitensporig

And so, after a couple of days in Rome, Vinca and I flew back to Brussels, from where we took a train to Rotterdam. Three weeks of South Eastern Europe lay behind me. I had built a house for a young couple in Beius, visited an old friend in Budapest, met NATO soldiers in Macedonia, traveled through No-man’s land in Albania and chilled in Rome. How wonderful a time it really had been.

I got back to work on Wednesday morning, at 8am. But the smile on my face told of the excitement I had had over the past three weeks.

Rome antic

July 22, 2000 • Blog

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World » Italy » Rome » Fontana di Trevi

The next day, the sun shining brightly in the morning sky, beautiful Rome welcomed us, the city still being as wonderful as I remembered. It was still before 7am and when I arrived at the hotel my girlfriend had made reservations at, no-one seemed to be there yet. I don't mean just my girlfriend. No-one.

It took a while before someone finally opened the door. The older Italian who finally did arrive, spoke nothing but Italian, understanding absolutely no English or even French, and it took quite a while before some form of communication existed between him and me. The result being that he told me to come back at 12pm, since he had no record of a reservation on either my name or my girlfriend's and at 12 his daughter would be at the reception, who spoke English.

So I spent the morning in one of the city's parks and went back at 12. Indeed, a very good-looking girl, speaking perfect English, was waiting at reception. I got the key to the room and went up to get a shower. Now, I only had to wait for my girlfriend to arrive, supposedly at 7pm.

Branson messing up

The Virgin flight my girlfriend was on was supposed to arrive at 7pm. At 9pm, it still was showing on the monitors as having not arrived. By that time, I had already done some inquiries from the airport information desk but they didn't know what they were talking about. At first I was told the flight was delayed. Then that the flight had been canceled and that everyone must have been transferred to the later Virgin flight. But the one thing I wanted to know, was if my girlfriend actually had been on the flight or was put (if the flight had been canceled) on another flight, they couldn't tell me.

At the Virgin desk, a rather grumpy old man was doing some paper work. When I told him the situation, that I had been waiting several hours for the flight to arrive, and that I really wanted to know if my girlfriend had been on the plane, he told me, with a heavy Italian accent: "You know, in Italy we have privacy!". I had to come back the next day. I thanked him, cursing him silently.

So since I had no more options left (I had already called my girlfriends home, getting no answer there and had also called the hotel, learning that she hadn't arrived there either), I went back to the hotel, feeling totally beaten. To my surprise, when entering the hotel room some 75 minutes later, Vinca was taking a nap in our huge bed. She HAD been on the Virgin flight, but it had been called as a Sabena flight and she said she had no idea I was going to pick her up and, in Rome, got lost trying to find the hotel…

So we had both finally made it. Rome lay at our feet.

We spent a couple of days in Rome before heading back to the Netherlands. The weather was perfect and we had a great time. The wonderful Italian coffee, the beautiful sites, the fantastic wine and each other. A perfect ending to a great vacation.

Strange days

July 21, 2000 • Blog

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World » Albania » Tirana » On the streets

This day was, easily, the most remarkable day on my trip. At 6:30am, I was still in Ohrid. A mere 14 hours later, at 8:30pm, I was in Bari. It wasn’t an easy day, although interesting, Albania being the most remarkable of places.

I got up at the 5am. Not easy, since the night before I stayed up till 1am, talking to Jan and Annitsa, after the concert of the previous evening. Shortly after waking up, I realized I heard voices. Considering I finally had gone insane, I eventually recognized the voices of my two housemates but also heard a girl’s voice. The three spoke a mix of English and Macedonian. Later I learned the girl was American. Where she picked up Macedonian, however, I don’t know.

The bus to Sveti Naum, just on the border with Albania, was supposed to leave at 6:30am. That early, the supermarket at the bus station was still closed, but a cafeteria and a bakery, were already open. I stocked up on food for the day and waited for the bus to arrive.

By the time the bus showed up, some bathing die-hards had already gathered, to get to the nicest spot on the lake. Most of the people boarding the bus though, were workers, chatting expressively on the bus ride, or taking a little nap before finally having to start work.

The bus only stopped at camping sites, but only at the last stop did people actually get in. Mostly kids, they apparently had spent a holiday on the lake, close to Albania. Some minutes after the last camping site, the bus stopped at the border post. Almost 90 minutes after getting on the bus, I walked through the Macedonian border crossing. Of the 5 people that got off with me, only one also crossed the border. The others seemed to go to work at the crossing itself.

Between the Macedonian and Albanian border crossings, some 500 meters of no-mans land exists. With a beautiful view on the lake, you are coaxed to not stop anywhere by the numerous signs along the road. However, the man that also crossed the border at the same time as I did, did stop to take a piss.

At the Albanian side, I had to wait half an hour before I could cross. I was told they were in the middle of a shift change, and I was told to wait. Some time after I arrived, a big and very old Mercedes, with heavy hatted border patrol people arrived, after which the change of guard was laboriously executed. Some time after that, I could finally give in my passport for the check up.

When waiting, I had plenty of time to examine the basin that was dug in the road, on the incoming track from Macedonia. I had seen a similar basin on the Macedonian side, for cars coming from Albania. It took me some time and a chat to understand what it was actually used for: to disinfect the undersides of cars, coming from (and going to) Macedonia.

A trip

Although I had to wait for the guards to switch, getting into Albania wasn’t all that hard. The border guards were friendly, possibly since they had only arrived minutes ago, and I was on my way again in only minutes.

Getting out of Albania was more of a hassle. For one, I had to choose between a transit visa and a regular visa. The transit visa didn’t cost all that much, but allowed me only to stay in Albania for a maximum of 24 hours. The regular visa allowed me to stay much longer, but would cost me about $40. However, if I would use the transit visa and overstay my visit, I was going to pay 5 times the price of the regular visa when exiting the country. Considering Albania, although probably very exciting, was not going to be the most relaxing place to stay, I opted for the transit visa. The race was on!

A big gray taxi, a Mercedes was waiting at the border. I got a ride into town, to Pogradec. Already, the streets were of the poorest quality.

Getting closer

So there was no public transport going from Pogradec to Tirana, although private taxis operated throughout the whole country. The problem was just finding the right place to leave from, to get to the right place to go to.

I was directed, by one of the girls at a bank where I changed money, to where most of the private taxis heading for Tirana passed by on their way to leave town. She also told me that I should pay no more than 500 Leke, some $3.

Before finally arriving at the scene, after asking some 3 policemen, I had already gathered something of a following. People wanting to talk to me, where I came from, what my destination was, where I had come up with the absurd idea of traveling through Albania, etc. One of the policemen actually hung out with me for some time, trying to get me into vouching for him, so that he could travel to the Netherlands. I had no choice to agree, since my tactic of supposedly not understanding him was finally undermined by some 5 men at the ‘taxi stop’, directing traffic, trying to translate what the policemen was saying. After waiting for some 30 minutes, I was happy to pay the proposed 500 Leke to get to Tirana.

When I got in the van, together with the 6 people already in there, I had no idea the trip would take a staggering four hours along the worst roads imaginable. Afterwards, I understood why the trip was relatively expensive; The driver deserved the money for avoiding oncoming traffic, holes in the road the size of small lakes and ravines on either side of the, what was called a, highway.

We stopped halfway for a snack. All the way, the scenery had been staggering. The first part, alongside Lake Ohrid was beautiful. Slowly, we climbed higher and higher, allowing for an evermore beautiful view of the lake. Afterwards, we dove into the inland, high mountain peaks and deep ravines on either side of the road. But with car wrecks everywhere, unfinished houses topping the scenery off. And, even more strange, the occasional Italian carabinieri.

So we stopped for a snack. At a roadside diner, that seemed to have been built within 24 hours, people were downing Bavaria beer by the bucketload, either enjoying a bowl of rice or a plate of spaghetti. Our group had a Turkish coffee (that is, we all had a Turkish coffee), except for the driver, who also had a marvelous bowl of spaghetti. I got intrigued by the waiters. Not so much by their apparent unfriendliness, as by their ability to make all the garbage disappear. On one big heap right next to the diner.

Tirana

You have to visualize the road we were traveling on. Barely two lanes, one in each direction, zig-zagging along the mountain sides. Holes that could fit a cow and crazy drivers trying to hit the cows that hadn’t fallen into one of the holes. Most of the roads where under construction or partially blocked because they should have been under construction.

One of the men in the van spoke a little bit of English, trying to teach me Sqip (Albanian) at the same time. He didn’t really succeed, since his way of teaching me Sqip was saying one word in his language after me having said a sentence in English. Then I had to guess which word he had translated. When we finally arrived in Tirana and drove passed the office selling boat tickets to Italy, I tried to make it clear I wanted to get out, to actually obtain a boat ticket. Nodding understandably, they drove me to the train station instead. I got my self a train ticket to Durres and walked back to get a boat ticket.

Not one, but three people at this office spoke English. What was more, every night a boat left from Durres to Bari, in Italy, arriving the next morning. That is, every night except Friday nights. Today was Friday. Alternatives where a hydrofoil leaving at 5pm or boats leaving the next day. And to make things more complicated a ticket costs about $80, but the 5pm hydrofoil had its prices cut to a mere $38. I had no real choice but to take the 5pm one. It was already 2pm. I had to be at the boat landing one hour early. So I had one whole hour to check out the city of Tirana before going to Durres.

I mentioned at the ticket office I had gotten myself a train ticket to Durres. I was immediately told I should get a bus. Much better and faster. It should take only an hour. It is less then 40km from Tirana to Durres. It took 75 minutes.

Tirana is a true mess. The city really, really stinks. The Lonely Planet describes Tirana’s main square and the surrounding area as being a romantic area to stroll through for hours. Maybe in winter it can be, but in summer it smells, its dirty and its ugly. No one seemed to realize that it might be worthwhile to throw garbage, not out on the streets, but in garbage bins. Then again, I didn’t see any garbage bins anywhere in Albania.

Driving rules, as on the roads coming in to Tirana, don’t seem to exist. Traffic driving everywhere, every car making a big noise and the occasional car stopping in the middle of the road to offer me a place to stay (my backpack gave me away), the roads being completely wrecked, the pavement only partially available. The city really seemed to be fashioned out of shades of gray. Meanwhile, the stream flowing through the city is colored dark brown and people openly piss and shit in it. On the main square, in front of the national bank, scores of men were waiting, carrying hands full of Albanian money.

Further

When I walked back, in the direction of the train station, towards the taxi-stop, several vans were passing. One, empty except for a man and a woman in the front seats and the kid hanging out the side window caught my attention. Not in the least because the kid was hanging out of the window, shouting out its destination VERY loudly.

I was the first to get on (the three people seemed to be family) and the taxi drove round the city to try and pick up more people going to Durres. The kid constantly shouting from the side window and people, waiting really everywhere until the right van with the right destination would come along to pick them up. These vans do not operate on any schedule. They just drive, or not, and that’s it. Considering that, a 50km trip could easily turn into a day trip. On the other hand, this is one good example where deregulation of public transport really has meant heaven for private enterprise.

The scenery, when driving from Tirana to Durres, was even more interesting then when driving to Tirana. The area looked like a scenery straight out of Mad Max. It was pure chaos. At some point we stopped for two passengers to take a piss. We stopped close to a little shed, in front of which three men were playing cards. Next to the shed two cars were lined up, being sold.

The younger man that got out, went to the back of the cars to take a leak. The other, a man maybe in his 60s, leaned against one of the cars and started pissing, against the car! Piss dripping from the back of the car, one of the card players soon noticed the dripping, got mad and wanted to kick some ass. The younger man, finished early, quickly came in-between and, for several minutes, it seemed that they were about to kill each other. Only after the driver started commenting on the situation did the card player finally back down, but only after raising a smile at the driver.

In Durres, I had quite a hard time to get to the right ship. I (being the last passenger in the taxi) was dropped off infront of the train station. A girl working for a travel agency in the station building directed me to the docks. Walking through abandoned warehouses, empty railroad tracks and muddy waters, I arrived at a big hole in the fence, surrounding the docks. The hole was guarded by three soldiers, pointing their guns at me. Strangely enough, others were happily walking past them. I wasn’t allowed in, and it was clear that this was the docks area.

Only when I told one of the guards, Marko, I was Dutch, did they loosen up. Marko knew a Dutch journalist and wanted to tell me all about him. “Sit down, sit down, you have plenty of time!” He gave me the name of the other Dutch guy he knew, whom I should tell I met Marko, from Puka in Albania. Meanwhile, I had to talk with him. It took quite some convincing to have him not take my Lonely Planet and finally, after offering a packet of Camels, was it reasonably allright for me to continue. Marko pointed me in the right direction. The boat was to leave in 50 minutes. I had to arrive an hour before departure.

Getting closer to the landing area, it became clear I had taken the unconventional entrance. Hordes of people were trying to get into the docks area through the main entrance, coaxing guards and border patrols to accept their luggage for a safe crossing (and a huge profit, probably). I walked towards three other soldiers with dark and very big sun glasses and asked where my ship might be moored. Their immediate reaction: “This ship not here, you have to go back in that direction, maybe 30 minutes walk.” I kindly noted that this wasn’t probably the case. As a result, I received a private armed escort around the landing area. The soldier, at each new ship, making it clear that my ship REALLY wasn’t one of the boats available. After ten minutes we finally found it. It was delayed.

Another world

Meeting the Italian captain of the ship marked my entrance into Western Europe. One of the pursers asked me if I wanted any girls when arriving in Bari and the final sign I really had crossed the border was the $1.75 price tag for a can of cola.

We were only three passengers on the hydrofoil. Apparently, on weekends, the ship was packed, as Albanians working in Italy would come home for the weekend and leave again to work in Italy. However, since I had quite an eventful trip over the past days, being only with two other passengers wasn’t all that bad.

Normally, the Adriatic see is very quiet, it being almost closed off to the ‘outside’, open seas. Today, however, it was terrible. Additionally, a hydrofoil needs relative quiet waters to do it’s thing well. Now, with the waves making a disturbance, the hydrofoil was being played with by the sea. Already after some 15 minutes at sea, the other two passengers had gotten themselves small paper bags to vomit in, which they did regularly. At first, I found it a lot of fun, going on deck and later, when on deck it really became too bad to be outside, sitting on the side of the ship, looking outside at the ever moving horizon. An hour later or so, I was close to puking.

The crew happily kept on drinking, laughing, watching TV and eating. The two other passengers were lying on the ground, occasionally trying to vomit, I was curled up on a couple of seats in the middle of the ship, the best place to be when on a moving bus or boat, when being seasick.

Normally, I can stomach a lot. Now however, I even went to the toilet to try and vomit, twice. Both times nothing happened, and I got back to my seat to enjoy more of the roller coaster ride. I was immensely happy when, finally, after being more than two hours late, we arrived at the port of Bari.

My phone had stopped working when entering Macedonia. Both in Romania and Bulgaria I had had coverage so occasionally I first phoned home to prove my continued existence. Only later did I learn this cost me $3. Per minute. I checked my phone on arrival in Bari and noticed my mum had tried to call me. About 25 times. Occasionally leaving a message, the first saying ‘I just called to say hi…’, the last being ‘Please call, I’m starting to get worried…’. I figured it made sense to give her a call. The lost son had arrived ‘home’ again.

The right trousers

When waiting for the 12:18am train from Bari to Rome, a change of tracks was announced through the speakers. I asked one of the people waiting for the same train if he spoke any English. Luckily he did. He didn’t speak any Italian though, so he too hadn’t understood the announcement.

The guy turned out to be working for a Bangladesh firm, trying to sell jeans to wholesalers in Europe. We turned out to share the same cabin (with air condition!) on the train. The couches were very inviting, but only one stop later did two German backpackers enter the cabin, which meant no sleep for any of us.

I talked for some time with the guy from Bangladesh and helped him out a bit to understand where he should go next and how he should travel. It was his first time

On the shores of lake Ohrid

July 20, 2000 • Blog

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World » Macedonia » Ohrid » The lake shore

Ohrid is a very 'nice' place. It has a very Mediterranean feeling, but at the same time looks like Switzerland. The lake, with the backdrop of mountains is beautiful. The stalls, on the boardwalk in Ohrid, selling everything from popcorn to Kebab to Henna tattoos are appalling. If you like 'this sort of thing' and normally go to Ibiza or Crete to get your holiday kicks, Ohrid, for sure, is a much better option. I, for one, ain't really sure whether I like it or not.

I was already thinking of my journey onward. There was a bus going to the Albanian border, from Ohrid. But there, I would be left to my own devices, another bus going to Tetovo (back towards Skopje), where the Skopje – Tirana bus would come through. A minor problem being that noone, not even the bus agency, could tell me when the buses to Tirana would leave from Tetovo, meaning I might have to stay in Tetovo for a night or longer.

Synchronisity

Ohrid has a number of interesting historical sites. A citadel, some churches, a monastery and a couple of historical digs. Walking on the citadel's walls, I noticed two familiar faces walking downstairs, some 25 meters below me. The two Germans from the bus ride from Sofia to Skopje. I went down and we talked a bit about the several possibilities, continuing traveling from Ohrid.

I now also had learned that there was a regular boat going from Ohrid to a place called Sveti Naum; right on the border with Albania. From there you could then continue Westwards. When, later, I bumped into the two Germans again, it turned out the boat service was very irregular and you couldn't always cross over into Albania either.

Although it didn't seem to be a problem to bump into two Germans on regular intervals, planned meeting with my housemates was more of a problem. Marion and Angel had planned to go swimming some place further out along the shores of the lake, and I had promised to look them up. As I did. The place they had gone too was nothing more than your average trailer/camping park on the lake shore. Housemusic thumping away, hordes of youngsters enjoying fun in the sun. And two Australians sunbathing next to me.

The scantily dressed women, combined with the time I had on my hands, made me realize a Macedonian, perhaps Balkan trait: Women have short legs, big asses, no small waist, big breasts, long noses, dark hair and light colored eyes.

Traveling back from the camping site to Ohrid, I bumped into too much Dutch for comfort. In stead of a regular bus service, a private taxi was operating the line between the camping and Ohrid. It being easily noticeable I wasn't Macedonian, the driver asked where I came from. On revealing I was Dutch, the driver started to talk Dutch to me. I couldn't believe my ears. It turned out he was married to a Dutch woman, now living in Macedonia. Half way the trip, his parents in law boarded the car. Even more Dutch. Imagine this, you're in a private taxi, traveling by yourself, sharing it with some 9 others, in the middle of Macedonia and about half the group speaks Dutch. Terrible!

Back in Ohrid, since I had missed Angel and Marion altogether anyway, I got myself a ticket to one of the events of the Ohrid Summer festival, an international festival of dance, music, theater and more. Earlier in the day, when walking through the old town, I had bumped into the general rehearsal for the show I got tickets for.

It was time to decide on the next leg of my trip. There was a Hertz office in Ohrid, so I went in and asked how much drop off costs would be for renting a car here and driving to Albania. "Too expensive, not good." Pressing on, the agent revealed that drop off costs would top a hefty $1000. I, very quickly, decided that hiring a car was not such a good idea.

Meanwhile, in the same office, another Dutch guy was trying to rent a car as well. After his heated discussion with the agent, we talked a bit and decided to go for a beer. It turned out he had gotten tickets for the same show that night, as I had. He invited me for dinner, after which we would go to the show.

Jan worked for VSO, a humanitarian organization, where he had a task as something of a management consultant for the local government. The emphasis being on 'something of', although he was reasonably satisfied with it.

In the evening, just before the show, we were joined by Annitsa. A very interesting woman, head of a translation service, she had lived in the UK before and, because of that, was asked to be part of the welcome committee for Prince Charles some years earlier, also in Macedonia. Some things she said in a discussion we had later on still sticks in my mind, even now: "Don't focus on what you can't change. Focus on what you can." and "You have to decide what you want from life, you have to use opportunities yourself."

The performance, a small classical orchestra, being taped for live national television, wasn't all that bad. A pity that during the break no drinks or snacks were served. So, we had no choice but to go for a multitude of drinks afterwards. Not that I really had the time for that: My bus, supposed to drive me to the border, was leaving at 6:30am. I had decided to try and get to Italy without backtracking. If nothing else, it was at least going to be interesting.

UNforgettable

July 19, 2000 • Blog

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World » Macedonia » Skopje » Bus station

Sofia's international bus station, very small and outside the city center, was easy to find. On the bus to Skopje, there were a bunch of locals, two Germans and three UN soldiers.

Two of the soldiers, Meredith and Sconny, only started two months ago in Kosovo. The third, stationed in Pristina, was already on his fourth tour for the UN. His attitude screamed experience: "A piece of ass and a shot of whiskey and I was asleep by 10 o'clock yesterday". All three guys got the same salary. A cool 16000DM a month. Yes, that IS what they receive on their bank account and it IS tax money.

Sconny couldn't stop talking. About Kosovo, about his Cajun cooking, his home state of Louisiana ("If you cook it, we'll eat it, and if it's not cooked, we'll probably eat it as well"). In Kosovo, just like what had happened last year, it would be likely for them to have no electricity during winter, the toilets even freezing over.

None of the local women there, threatened by their family, are allowed to talk to UN soldiers. When spoken to, they hang their head down and walk on.

The UN requires that all nationalities have the same relative amount of people for the different jobs within the UN. The result being, in this case, that people from India and the Dominican Republic are running part of the show. In the offices where Sconny worked, they haven't had phones or transportation for three weeks now. The 16 guys coming from Ivory Coast were selected for their English skills, not their military skills.

Before going on this UN mission, Sconny used to be a police officer in the States. He told me about a white South African he had had in his jail. The guy, looking like Jean Claude van Damme, but much bigger, was doing air kicks, stretches, splits, the whole thing, each and every day. The man was wanted in South Africa for multiple killings of blacks, but to avoid being hanged, he had escaped to the States. He was about to be extradited, but he had already promised to kill, if necessary, to avoid going back…

Meanwhile, the older UN guy had scored one of the women. And she didn't even speak any English! If you're wandering, he spoke only English.

Also on the bus were two Germans. They boarded in Pernik and were going to Macedonia. No real plan, they were considering stopping in Skopje, Ohrid, Albania and Italy. One of them spoke Russian and talked with one of the babushkas on the bus. She owned a guest house in Ohrid and convinced the Germans to go directly on to Ohrid. She even invited me, but I wanted to see a little bit of Skopje first, before moving on. It meant arriving in Ohrid very late, something I don't really like, also because Ohrid is a major holiday hotspot and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a place to stay if I would arrive near the end of the day.

A beautiful lake

The seven hour bus ride from Sofia to Skopje made me really want to stretch my legs. Still I also wanted to move on to Ohrid on the same day, which turned out to be another three and a half hours by bus. Luckily, the two hours I had for strolling through Skopje turned out to be enough to see the town.

Not only isn't Skopje a very interesting city, I also didn't really like the locals. Although the very center of the city is nice, very much resembling an Arabic suq (market), you really can't spend much more than a couple of hours there. The people had Turkic features, and seemingly were constantly on the lookout for a thingamajig to sell. In addition, Skopje was filled with UN.

When, in Skopje's tourist office, I asked where I could find a public toilet, one of the girls looked kind of funnily at me: "There is only one public toilet in Skopje. But you could also act according to ancient Macedonian custom and find a place where no one sees you." Not wanting to break tradition, I did as the Macedonians do.

The trip to Ohrid wasn't great. Although the bus was twice as young as on my previous trip, it being filled to the bring with youngsters making heaps of noise.

Since I was a bit insecure as to whether I would have a place to stay for the night in Ohrid, I tried to make a bit of contact with some of the youngsters on the bus. I had already noticed that the Turkic roots of the Macedonians didn't really help in creating lovely girls. Therefore, I was surprised by three girls on the bus who were rather gorgeous. Although, as it turned out, they didn't speak any language I spoke, I learned they were Yugoslavian. That explained their beauty. Meanwhile, though, I was still without a bed for the night.

Luckily, when arriving at the Ohrid bus station, I was jumped at by some 10 babushkas, all trying to sell me a room for around 10DM a night. Happily surprised, I went for the babushka that went down to 8DM. Since her apartment was in the center of town, overlooking the really beautiful lake, I didn't make a fuss when she eventually asked for 5$, which is even more than the 10DM she started with!

Granny's lodging had two other guests, Marion and Angel. Both guys spoke quite a bit of English, their main subjects being female genitals and behinds, although they also managed a couple of Dutch words, 'lekker kontje'. The two were very friendly, though, and had come to Ohrid to make some money, cutting profiles out of paper and painting 15-day tattoos on peoples arms, legs and most probably those private parts too.

The two were a bit of a surprise in that they were clearly not focused on scamming me, the rich tourist, out of my money. Both were sincere and just two kids trying to have some fun and making some money on the side. Their enterprise mindedness, as specially considering the environment they and their parents had lived in for so long (they came from Yugoslavia), was refreshing. We talked for most of the evening and when I mentioned that I was going to meet my girlfriend in Rome in a couple of days and that she was going to fly over from Rotterdam for the occasion, Angel said that she really had to love me a lot if she would come to Rome for me.
I really hope she does.

Rila

July 18, 2000 • Blog

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World » Bulgaria » Rila monastery

The bus trip to Rila, uneventful, took way too long. Since there wasn't a direct bus going from Sofia to Rila, we had to switch buses along the way. When we finally arrived at the monastery at 13:30, we had until 14:10, when the last bus would be going back in the direction of Sofia again. Of course we missed it, although the Finns did take it, and we had to do quite a neck braking tour to get back to Sofia before the end of the day. We had to take a bus to the nearest train station, in a place called Dupnitsa. There, however, we also missed the train, only one last train still going to Sofia that day. By the time we arrived in Sofia again it was about nine in the evening. We had been away the whole day and spent less then 4 hours in Rila.

When waiting for the bus at Rila, we started talking to three Bulgarians who had hiked across the mountains to get to the monastery. Two of them were married and lived in Boston, speaking perfect English. The third, a beautiful shy girl of 16, was going to visit her grandmother in some small Bulgarian village (she herself was Bulgarian too) and also spoke perfect English. She confessed in reading many English books, her favorite authors being Hemingway and Somerset Maugham. Each time the train went through a tunnel and the lights didn't work, we counted the number of people in the compartment, to make sure everyone was still there, Agatha Christie style.

In the evening we dined with the jet set of Sofia in one of Sofia's more expensive restaurants before going to bed. I had to get up before six, to get my bus to Skopje.

Chillout city

July 17, 2000 • Blog

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World » Bulgaria » Sofia » Bai Gencho

In the morning, when the train started to fill up with locals going to Sofia for a multitude of reasons, I had no choice but to wake up and sit, in stead of lying down. Having experienced better nights, I looked like hell. Still, I couldn't help chatting up this really nice girl sitting next to me. Katya, fresh from high school, was about to do an entry exam for studying English at the university of Sofia. Remarkably, talking to me was her first time ever, speaking English with someone, not from Bulgaria. Last I heard, she was studying in a little place called Veliko Tarnovo.

We finally arrived, an hour late, in Sofia at 11am. About an hour later, Dimitar, the guy that gave me a ride from Germany all the way to Budapest, called: "You said you would call me when you would arrive in Sofia!" Later in the day, we,myself, Hendrik and Stella, had a drink with him.

At the train station, we were welcomed by several people trying to sell us an apartment for the night. We literally were able to choose from several options, finally settling for the Mariot (yes, with one 't'). Here, we met Wayne, a Canadian guy, and two Finnish Interrailers, Mette and Andy, with whom we went to Rila the next day.

Sofia is a very, very nice city. Quiet, the city has a very friendly air to it. Not so much flooded with tourists as other major Eastern European cities and also very green, Sofia is a great place to relax. A pity prices are quite a bit higher than, say, in Bucharest.

We basically didn't do much more than hang out in Sofia, visit the tourist hotspots and enjoy chilled beer or cocktails on one of the city's many terraces. In the evening we went for dinner at the very Bulgarian Bai Gencho and went to bed early. For the next day, we had planned a day trip to Rila, which meant getting out of bed at 7am.

Off again…

July 16, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Bucharest » Train station

It wasn't very surprising that the next day most men had a very hard time getting out of bed, most not getting out before 12 in the afternoon, just in time to get their plane. Two of the guys, Jacobs and Slump were able to get out of bed a bit earlier and we had brunch at a small cafe next to the hotel. Very cheap and surprisingly good. What was even more surprising was the ban on smoking in the restaurant. In Romania, that's nearly a contradiction in terms.

Some time later, I bumped into two other Veti and had a coffee in the same cafe again. This time, some old guy in the same cafe noticed some of our T-shirts, advertising Habitat for Humanity. He had to come over, continuously explaining that 'this' would become big business and that we just had to go in business together. He gave me his e-mail address and I even emailed him, after I got back. Haven't heard from him since.

Bouk was the only one leaving Bucharest late in the day, on another plane. We had planned to do some more site seeing in the city but had missed each other in the morning. However, he didn't expect me still being close to the hotel and when he gave me a call to find out where I was, it turned out that he was in a cab, driving northwards. Why north? I had mentioned the previous day that I was going to visit Ceaucescu's former residence and that's in the north of town.

We met up some time later, visited Ceaucescu's residence, were kicked out by police and went to his grave instead. A treat, since you also get the graves of his wife and their son in one go. What else could you want?

After putting Slockers on the bus to the airport, I wondered if, now that I was alone again, I would interact more with locals. I did. Not only did I talk with a Pakistani at my hotel, when I picked up my luggage, a very nice girl also started talking with me about the (beautiful, at least according to her) Black Sea, when she saw my backpack when I was on my way to the train station.

That evening, I had a very nice dinner in a very nice restaurant. With granite columns and very nicely decorated wooden sculptures, it resembled a church. The folk dancing and music made it even better. I expected high prices but it was dirt cheap.

I started talking to a German girl, working for Hotel Palace Berlin, who had also fallen in love with Eastern Europe. Sadly, I had to leave too early to catch my train to Sofia, leaving the same evening.

I had gotten my ticket earlier in the day, but only now, after close inspection of the ticket, did I notice I hadn't any reservations for a sleeper. It seemed I was traveling to Sofia on a regular passenger train. Not only that, shortly after arriving in my cabin, two youngsters joined me. Hendrik and Stella turned out to be two Interrailers from Holland, studying at Utrecht university, on their first major trip abroad. The worst wasn't them being Dutch, it was only there being two couches for three people in our compartment.

Thief in the night

Clearly, Hendrik and Stella were a bit young, their 'first time abroad' easily showing. As specially Hendrik, with an air of "I've seen it all, I know what it's about" wasn't particularly open to the different cultures they had come across.

Nevertheless, both Hendrik and Stella were very friendly and, together with Wayne, who we met in the hotel we stayed in, in Sofia, we 'did' Sofia and visited the Rila monastery in the south of Bulgaria.

During the night, traveling by train from Bucharest to Sofia, I nearly got pickpocketed. Since Hendrik, Stella and myself were sharing a compartment, there was room for no-one to actually lay down and get some sleep. Instead, I offered to find an empty compartment, found one and went to sleep.

I awoke to someone banging loudly on the compartment door with a heavy club. Apparently it was difficult to wake me up, judging from the stance this custom control officer was taking. Five minutes later, it was border patrol and I was allowed to go back to sleep again.

Then, I was already sleeping again, I somehow felt a small hand reaching for my pocket, the one were I was keeping my wallet. I opened my eyes and quickly sat up. Still groggy from sleep, I was looking, wide eyed, in the scared-to-death eyes of a 10 year old. Both frozen in action, the boy audibly swallowing. He gained his composure sooner than I did, opened the compartment door and quickly ran off. I went back to sleep.

Fountains a plenty

July 15, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Bucharest » The House of the People

Bucharest isn't the most beautiful city you'll ever encounter. It's mainly huge, gray and in bad shape. The House of the People being the only really interesting landmark.

The House of the People, built by Ceaucescu in honor of, well, himself is the second largest building in the world, coming in second only after the Pentagon!

The building is absurd. Not so much from the outside, where its just a big ugly building, as it is from the inside. Granite everywhere, unbelievably large chandeliers and carpets, rooms the size of soccer fields and so on.

The building was (somewhat) finished in 1984 as the centerpiece of 'Ceausima', Ceaucescu's civic center. To accommodate the monstrous building, twelve churches, three monasteries, two synagogues and 7000 homes were bulldozed. When the first post-communist parliament moved in, the building was renamed 'the Parliament Palace'. However, locals still call it 'it' or the 'thing'. At times, 25000 people were working on the palace at the same time. It's a Monster. However, it's also very impressive.
When, some years ago, Michael Jackson gave a concert in Bucharest, he stood on one of the building's balconies, saying 'hi' to the crowds that had gathered: 'Hello Budapest'. Needless to say, Michael isn't really popular in Bucharest.

We staid in the same hotel the group had staid in when coming in to Romania. Easy and affordable it was right in the center of town. Close to all the nightclubs we would undoubtedly visit in the evening.

Half the group decided to take a nap first, when arriving at the hotel. The other half, myself included, did some sight seeing around town. Not that there's really much to see besides following the trail of the 1989 revolution. The city's atmosphere isn't bad though, relaxing, and with the sun shining, you can find a terrace on most street corners. Another Ceaucescu legacy is the whole city being littered with water fountains.

Our two groups met at the House of the People. We had agreed to meet at 1300hours, at the front entrance of the House of the People. After waiting for twenty minutes, we decided to try and find the main entrance, where only a few minutes later we were able to join on a tour of the building. Leaving the tour, we bumped into the second group. Zwan, being part of that group had had quite a hard time getting from one place to the next, his knee still being injured from the game of soccer. They had tried to be in time but Zwan just made it impossible. When we met up with them again when they exited the tour, Taas had arranged an evening date with the guide; a very quiet Romanian girl going by the name of Monica. Last I heard, they're still in contact with one another and planning to go to Spain together…

It's a girl thing

The evening was good. We had dinner at a place called 'Bistro Atheneau', serving good, Italian style food for very reasonable prices. We had something of a feast.

Already during dinner, Taas had to leave us for meeting Monica. After dinner, we took a cab to Disco Club Maxx. After Maxx, we went to the Flamenco. Maxx, way out on the outskirts of town, Flamenco in the city center, the two couldn't be much further apart, not just geographically.

Club Maxx is frequented by students, the music played includes a lot of Spanish rhythms, (very good) cocktails start at $1 and there's an atmosphere of people going wild.

Flamenco is frequented by whores and pimps (and us apparently), the music played is mainly house, a beer is no cheaper than $3 and almost everyone is trying to make a living. However, it is easy to dance with a girl at the Flamenco. But only for one dance and one dance only. After one dance, the girls always ask if you would like a bit more besides dancing. One, two and sometimes three pimps standing behind them, making sure she's not ripping off anyone, them particularly.

When I walked home from the Flamenco, three separate youngsters, each one about 20 years old, asked me if I was looking for a girl. The next day I learned that Taas actually had a very, ehm, close evening with Monica. Enjoying the stars and each other on one of the city's many outdoor benches.

Romanian girls, possibly even more so than Hungarian girls, know how to dress. The two discos we visited being perfect examples. Sure, at the Flamenco, most girls were dressed in see-through body stockings (or variations thereof) with high heels, moving like eels on the dance floor. But at the Maxx it wasn't much different, and here most visitors were students. But also the streets deliver an astounding portrait of Romanian beauty.

Then again, Romanians are awkward. Most of the Romanian guys we spoke claim to have multiple girlfriends. Meaning that most girls must have multiple boyfriends too. And for these well dressed ladies, the only objective really seems to be to take home a man, ASAP.

Which brings me to another point; What does your SO do what you don't know about? When Amalia, back in Beius, mentioned that Art looked very nice, I first asked for her hand to check whether she was married. She wasn't wearing a ring, and when I looked in her eyes, they confirmed the electricity she radiated when I took her hand. That, in addition to an earlier remark by her that I should get a girl in Romania made me not want to go any further. However, when I called Art over, she first started blushing but immediately mentioned that she was already taken. Which didn't seem much of a problem when she met up with Art again the next evening.

Similar stories seem to be valid for Kelly and Monica as well, although all non-single Veti on the trip seemed to act very chastely.

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