Serbia
Started off my trip in Serbia where I met up with a friend I had met on a train five years ago, Ana. She lives and works in Belgrade and it was nice to see her for a few days. I explored Belgrade and wondered how Bulgaria had made it into the EU and Serbia didn’t. Belgrade was a beautiful, modern city and the people there were pleasant. However, on my way out of Belgrade I had some bad luck. I got on to a night train bound for Budapest and quickly found a cabin to myself. I threw my backpack up on the rack and sat in the seat by the window as four punk ass kids quickly filed in to the cabin. Two of them were smoking. Well I’d be damned if I was gonna sit up all night on an eight hour train ride while four punk kids kept me awake with their smoke! So I grabbed my pack and headed for the door. As I did one of the guys asked me where I was going. He asked in Serbian, which was close enough to Bulgarian for me to understand and reply. So I said I couldn’t breathe the smoke and was going to find another cabin. He started trying to guess at where I was from – Italy, Macedonia, Russia… never figured out how Italy made his list of possibilities. As I tried to exit, he stuck his foot out, physically blocking my path, and said, “Where are you from?” as if he needed the answer to be satisfied for the night. “Somewhere.” I told him, as I started to feel his friends’ exploring hands trying to make their way into my pockets and my backpack. Well that pissed me right off so I forced my way out of the cabin with a rude shove. Four on one aren’t great odds! One of them followed me out the door and I could feel him still fiddling with my backpack so I turned around and challenged him! “What do you want? What are you doing?” I asked in an aggressive tone. He backed down and I hurried to find another cabin before his lackeys followed him out. In the end, although I was extremely annoyed, I only lost a few minutes of happiness and woke up in Budapest to a new day, in a new city, with new people to make my story more interesting!
Hungary and Slovakia
It had been awhile since I’d backpacked, but even though I’m a bit older than the typical hostel kid, I still consider myself part of that clique. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since I last traveled. I remember the gatherings around the television in the hostel where people watched CNN’s coverage on the Israeli incursions into the West Bank, the accusations the Bush administration made against Iraq for having WMDs, and even the announcement of the new pope. But as I traveled this time around, the only thing on any hostel television was that damned MTV! It was a crying shame!
That garbage rots the minds and potential of countless youth and unfortunately it’s made it’s way into my favorite culture – the traveling culture! How can this be? Travelers had become such different people than I remembered. I watched in disgust while they sat silent around the TV watching worthless crap only to occasionally speak during a commercial break to ask if anyone had seen a certain video! The only things they spoke of was which bar they were going to and if there was a hookah pipe? It seemed “the party” was all they were searching for. There wasn’t much conversation about politics or cultural exploration at all! Depressing. With that, I turned to couch surfing. This is a website for travelers that lets people experience the culture first hand! You get to sleep on a hosts’ couch or get taken on a tour of their city! It’s a great way to travel and learn! And it’s cheaper and more psychologically stimulating than a hostel!
My first couch surfing experience was in a small town called Trnava with a great gal named Luccka! She took me to neighboring villages, showed me local coffee shops, we cooked and drank wine, we toured art exhibits in the park and watched a parade for some celebration that neither of us understood! It was a fantastic week! There’s no possible way I could have gotten a better glimpse into another culture than this. My time with Luccka opened my eyes to a new way of traveling – a way that I’ll not turn back from!Latvia
In Latvia I met up with a friend I had met in Europe five years ago on my first backpacking adventure – Becca! We traveled together through a couple countries and experienced foreign cultures as best we could! However, not all of our hosts were as wonderful as Luccka had been. Our first host while traveling together was a nice old gal that barely spoke any English! Usually language barriers are fun, and for the most part, it was in this case too. The kicker that made this surf an uncomfortable one was this lady’s dog – a stray that she had taken in. The thing looked like she had just taken it in the day before we got there! It had lots of fleas and maybe some kind of skin disease! And it was all about Becca and I!!! It wanted to greet us, jump on us, and sleep with us! It was gross! We couldn’t do anything but laugh, and so we did! And so did our host! But we’re still not sure if we were all laughing at the same thing.
The next family we stayed with in Sigulda had a hobby of keeping up traditional ways of life from their Latvian ancestors – Inese and Andres!
Andres made beautiful traditional stringed instruments from wood, all by hand, and played them! Inese made traditional style clothing from different time periods and tribes. 
Towards the end of the evening, Andres played some music for us, and Inese dressed Becca up in traditional princess attire! It was about as far away from MTV as we could be and it was perfect!Estonia
The next host we stayed with was in Lahema National Park! Lenne took us on a tour of the Viru Bog and it was gorgeous! I’d never been to a bog before and she explained all the intricacies of it on our three hour hike through the pristine nature!
Consistent to my hiking back home, I greeted all the people we passed, but I did it in their language. In Estonian, “Hello” is “Tere” and I said it with my sweetest American accent! Lenne would laugh every time I said it and finally said to me, “You sound like an unintelligent person.” Basically she was politely telling me that I sounded retarded!Russia
Becca and I were going from one couch surfing host to the next and killing time in the middle of the day to wait for our hosts to be available. So we hung out near the Red Square! It was our understanding that drinking in public was legal on account of that’s what we’d been told and everyone drank in public.
Becca bought a beer from a street vendor and was drinking it while we enjoyed some sights. We were moving locations to get some night photography shots and we were to walk past a cop. I told Becca that even though I “knew” the law, it still made me nervous to be drinking in public. Just as she was telling me to relax and to not worry the cop turned around and said, “You can’t drink that here. Show me your documents.” Wonderful…He used his rough English skills to tell us that we had “broken the law.” Bulgarian is close enough to Russian to communicate so I used my Bulgarian skills to understand that we would have to go downtown with him, fill out some paperwork and then pay a penalty for breaking the law and the process would take about three hours. He took us to another location in the Red Square and we met his sergeant for more intimidation. The police sergeant would address me only and ran through the whole three hour process description once again. He told there would be a car there in ten minutes to take us away!
As another cop came over to distract Becca, the police sergeant pulled me aside and told me that he didn’t want to go downtown and fill out paperwork and call the embassy and all that noise. He said “I can see that you’re good tourists so instead of wasting 3 hours, you can just pay the penalty now and then go see the sights in 10 minutes.” Becca heard that and chimed in to ask if they could just take her to the station and leave me behind cause I wasn’t drinking. She kept saying she would go with them and that it’s not a problem, but there was no way I was gonna let her get taken away by a couple of Russian cops to god-knows-where! So after the other cop came back over and distracted her again, I turned to the sergeant and said, “Take a walk with me.”
He spoke better English than the last guy, but I still needed some Bulgarian to communicate effectively. I explained that I had just spent the last two years in Bulgaria, earning no money, volunteering my time to develop the country. I went on to say that we weren’t here to see the sights - we were interested in the Russian culture and personal experiences. I also said that Becca had made a mistake that we were both sorry for, but that it was an insignificant mistake and I told him he knew that! He tried to play the card of “What would a cop in America do?” and followed with, “Just pay the penalty and you can go see the sights like a good tourist.” So I told him I didn’t want to see any more cathedrals or castles or Kremlins or anything. I told him I didn’t care anymore and he asked why and I told him it was because he had taken away my happiness! I said that in America, we don’t know a lot about Russia and we were here to learn. And then I said, “You’re creating a bad memory of Russia for me and this is what I’m going to have to take back to America to tell my friends and family!” I said that with a little bit of sass cause I was pissed off and really cold.
He was silent for a moment and then looked over at Becca and said, “Is that your lady?” “If it is will you let me go?” I thought, but only said “yes”. He was silent for another moment and then looked at me and said, “Don’t drink on the metro or in a park or near a monument. That’s it, you can go.”
Well that just blew me away to think that I had just out-talked a Russian cop and I was overcome with energy! I shook his hand and told him thanks and he looked away and said, “Have a good evening.”
Through the whole ordeal, they all knew that I hadn’t been drinking - yet I was the one that they addressed and negotiated with. It’s a cultural difference that I may be able to identify but I’m far from understanding it.That said – Russia was AWESOME! The people were super friendly and excited to meet us! Not what I was expecting from my propaganda-like education during the Cold War. Our hosts in Russia were fantastic people and went way far out of their way to accommodate us. We talked and cooked together and through many conversations we were able to break all kinds of stereotypes that had been created by various sorts of media.
One of the ones that stood out in my mind was about vodka. Russian vodka is some of the best I’ve ever had – but we were hard pressed to find any Russians that would drink it! I thought all Russians drank vodka, all the time! But they looked at us like we were nuts when we asked to go to a bar that had vodka. They told us they just preferred beer. This, of course, wasn’t the case everywhere or with everyone, but it did happen often enough to surprise me!I had to fly home on November 1st, and it wasn’t easy to leave Russia, and it certainly wasn’t easy to part with Becca. I had been homesick for so long while in the Peace Corps, yet found myself making this last trip, the trip home, with great reluctance. My Peace Corps experiences, coupled with my traveling experiences, have had a synergistic effect to develop my character. I’ve grown so much as a person and developed into someone I’m super proud to be!
I’ve done amazing things – I’ve made amazing friends – I’ve been to amazing places – I’ve created some amazing stories! And I’ve got a future of happiness sitting in front of me that will lead me to more personal development – and this is what I crave! Not even MTV could slow me down now! I’m on my way!If you're dying to get a glipse into my adventures - take a look at the best pictures you've ever seen!!!
