Baby, Why Don't We Go Down to Kosovo?

I know exactly where I was when I heard the news that Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. If you’re like me—and I suspect you are because who else has the time to read the musings of an entitled, liberal and self-proclaimed worldly western youth—then you’ll remember how, when the news was broke to us, we all stood up and said “Yes!” to Kosovar independence, freedom and democracy for the Balkans and “No” to human rights violations (mainly because all of those words appeared in the first paragraph of the news release), which was followed by a discreet Googling of “what is Kosovo?” and a brief scanning of Facebook to see which support groups had the most members. I know that I myself had spent 1999—2008 blissfully unaware that Kosovo was in fact a place and not a typo of a Beach Boys song. If I had to create a mind-map of everything I knew about Kosovo (and I did, when my roommate asked me which side the cool kids were supporting), it would involve a Current Events segment in grade 7 and the catchy CNN headline “Crisis in Kosovo,” a Fat Serbian grandmother pointing out the window of the train going to Belgrade during a thundershower and cackling “Clinton…bombs!” in 2007 and…that is about it. I honestly did not remember Kosovo existed for all that time, and truthfully I’m a little skeptical about the dubious state of its existence today.

Entering Kosovo filled me with trepidation. My stay in Tirana had been nothing short of languid: I dined al fresco with two Parisians who were kinder than most about my accented francais; I couchsurfed with a Harvard alumnus and member of the Tirana intelligentsia; and I went on dates with Albanian supermodels in the most posh district of town, in a bar right next to Enver Hoxha’s house. Yes, life was getting a little too good for me, and I made up for it by sleeping in a half-finished apartment building in Durres a few nights later because I didn’t feel like paying 30 euros for a hotel room (or, for that matter, haggling from 30 euros down to 20).

I knew that I needed to be in Sarajevo on March 5 for the much anticipated reunion with my high school sweetheart, and needed to plan my days accordingly. Kosovo seemed like the least-natural choice, but I had no idea when I would be in the region again. I made way to Shkoder, where there was mass flooding, and crossed through the Albanian Alps to through the little towns of Puke and Rrape, had a near-close encounter with real puke on the winding roads, and descended into Kukes, where I was spotted by local Peace Corps workers who offered me food and shelter and sent me on my way.

So there I was, poised at the circle of taxis and furgons that would whisk me from Albania to Kosovo. Finding a mode of transport consumed most of my emotional energy and time in the morning, and finally I was under the impression I had agreed to pay 200 leke ($2) to go in a shared taxi to Prizren, the nearest town across the border. Naturally, my psychotic and yet fully-rational fear and loathing of taxi drivers had me on guard the entire way, and I started to worry that he had interpreted our agreement as being 2000 leke. I started to panic and, hoping to avoid a seriously awkward situation when we arrived in Prizren, I sprung from the car at the border, thrust 200 leke at the driver, and hollered thank-you in Albanian, hoping that he wouldn’t cause a fuss with all the border guards and police around. However, the driver was totally perplexed and rather happy that he had banked an extra 100 leke for not even delivering me the full way.

I decided that since I was at the border, I snapped some pictures, drank a couple coffees, ate a steak-and-eggs lunch, wrote a few postcards expressing my emotions, and walked through the border. It was a beautiful day, and I was in Kosovo with a nice little blue stamp on my passport in a seemingly peaceful corner of the world. Until, that is, I saw the signs warning me about landmines. And not to go to unauthorised areas. And the helicopters flying over head. And the presence of tanks for the Turkish detachment of NATO*. Kosovo was a living warzoneon constant standby, and people just went about their business. I got to be one of those people, and for the most part there was nothing particularly exciting. Kosovo was more developed, more European and less Albanian than Albania, and there was a calm and almost boring pervasiveness to the entire place. There was also crumbling Yugoslav infrastructure and a bronze statue of Bill Clinton. My needs were met. I settled in with a pizza and watched the final hockey game and prepared for my departure in the morning from Prishtina to Montenegro. Kosovo could not have been easier for anyone at any time in history.

*I’m sorry, what? Turkey? TURKEY? What is Turkey doing in Kosovo? Has no one read the Wikipedia article on the origins of World War One?

Shqip to My Lou

If there is one thing I felt before entering Albania, it was apprehension. Why? Who on earth knows? For some reason, however, Albania felt like true Eastern Europe, and a country entirely cut off from both West and East, which little-to-no chance of EU accession, and very little English to be expected upon arrival, I was a bit nervous. On the other hand, I was a young, relatively inexperienced buck at the time, Macedonia being the first “off-the-grid” country I had been to, and Albania seemed wild and untamed.

Luckily for me, I was entirely right. Albania is wild and untamed. Said one friend who later visited, “Why didn’t you warn me about how out of control Albania is? It is the least in-control place I have ever been.” Said another friend, in retort, “You make it sound like being in control is an option.” It’s true. Take Sicily. Now sever its ties to Rome at all official levels (though, let’s be honest, is Sicily still even part of Italy? Is Italy even a country? Discuss.). Now, empty its inhabitants and put them somewhere in North Africa (though, it’s already been argued—primarily via t-shirt slogans at souvenir stalls in Palermo—that “Italy is Europe, Sicily is North Africa”), and then ask them to adapt. I know you’re thinking that I said the same thing about Skopje and with Russians, but the key difference is in how

My point of entry for Albania was Lake Ohrid. Sadly void of any railway connections, getting to the Albanian border required a series of public buses. The crossing—Sveti Naum, was an old monastery on the cliffs above Lake Ohrid. On a gray and mildly drizzly day, outfitted in gumboots, a half-blank passport and an intrepid spirit, I took the plunge and walked across the border, past Hoxha-era bunkers, the portable customs office, and through a 1940s-era wood-and-barbed wire gate into the famed Illyria. I proceeded to walk another three hours to get to Pogradec, the nearest city at the edge of Lake Ohrid. The first thing that greeted me was a tinted-windowed, black Mercedes Benz. The driver rolled down the window and said “Taxi? 5 euros.” And I said, “I’m walking. You’re in a Mercedes Benz. And you want me to pay you?”

Well, it turns out that everyone in Albania drives a Mercedes. Everyone. This is where Mercedes Benzes go when they are put out to pasture. And there is a unique quality about Albania which permits every Mercedes to have the magic ability to transform itself into a taxi. Several hollers from taxi drivers and stares from locals later, I was in Pogradec, and the darkness was closing in. All I wanted to do was get to Tirana, because it was the only city I had heard of. I assumed there would be buses going to Tirana all the time, and that trains would be running non-stop. Surprise!—they weren’t. In fact, the situation became a bit dire for me as no one could fully communicate to me when the bus was coming, if the bus was coming, and if there was a bus. What I learned in the end was that no, there was no bus. After an hour or so of waiting, an espresso, and a refused offer of a taxi ride to Tirana for 40 euros—“because [I’m] such a good guy. For everyone else, 60 euros. But for [me], only 40 euros.” What a tempting steal, but I decided against and began walking in the approximate (?) direction of Tirana.

Suddenly, and without warning, a van pulled up, a door opened and a man started shouting at me. Now, I’m not sure what it is about Albania, or what came over me, but all the sensibilities of my carefully-nurtured upbringing went out the window as I heard the word “Elbasan!” and thought, okay, yes, I will get in this empty van with this stranger who is shouting. For some reason, it felt right. Well, lucky for me, he continued to drive around the city in a circle screaming “Elbasan!” at people until the entire van—a Mercedes make, no less—was full of merry Elbasan-bound pilgrims. Reaching Elbasan by about 8 at night, and after paying the international rate of $5 instead of 4, the driver deposited me in the downtown and told me where to go to catch a group taxi—heretofore known as a ‘furgon’—to Tirana. But of course, he couldn’t tell me when or if there would be one available at this hour. There wasn’t. But you know what there was? A fleet of black Mercedeses waiting to personally chauffeur me for 20 euros.

So onwards I walked. Tirana can’t be that far, I thought, this is Europe, not western Canada. But after about 45 minutes of walking I was worried that I wasn’t going to make it. I began eyeing up potential places of refuge to pass the night in if need be, and was mildly comforted to know that there is no shortage of abandoned pre-fabbed concrete structures in Albania.* Deciding to use this as a last resort, I continued on until I felt I could walk no further, when I happened upon a police road check. They noticed me, noticing them, and I tactfully asked if they knew when a bus was coming. The meaning was understood: I’m a tourist and I am going to die if I don’t get to Tirana tonight. They stopped every car, put me in one that was Tirana-bound, and washed their hands of me. The driver, suitably perplexed, was empowered by his new charge and determined to deliver me to Tirana. He called everyone he knew who could speak a bit of English to talk to me, and we listened to Albanian radio as we headed towards the capital.

Growing up, the only exposure I have had to long-term night driving is going to and from Kelowna. So when I am in a bus or car at night, I always look for tell-tale signs that signal the coming emergence of the exciting metropolis of Kelowna, BC. Then when I was let off in the downtown of Tirana, Albania, of all places, I was naturally disoriented and a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting at Sizzling Wok from the food court at Orchard Park Mall. But that soon became the least of my worries because I was not left to my own devices once in Tirana. My driver took me straight to the centre and found the nearest group of police officers and explained that I needed to be safely delivered to somewhere, if no one could ascertain where. I, of course, could ascertain where, but as I could not speak Albanian, they assumed that I had no idea where I was to go, how to get there, or how to even stay alive on my own. They pored over my map, arguing, making phone calls, asking passers-by on the street, wondering where this mysterious “youth hostel” could be. Taxi drivers, catching the sweet and presumably lucrative scent of fresh foreign blood, began circling their wagons, ready to swarm in. Passers-by tried to communicate with me in English that I should get into one of the taxis.

“No, thank you, I’ll walk.”
“But this address does not exist. You won’t be able to find it. You should go with the taxi driver.”
“But if no one knows where it is, what good is getting in a taxi going to do? I am fine on my own.”
“Then why are you asking all these people for help?”
“…I’m not.”

Finally, they let me go, off into the night, to fend for myself. I walked around the corner from where we were standing and, lo and behold, the youth hostel stood before me. 200 metres away from all that commotion. What I was able to take away from this experience is that while it’s commonplace in the West to laugh at my (specifically) for taking cartography classes, they clearly proved their worth for me, and their necessity in the Albanian school system.


*No shortage whatsoever, which possibly necessitates an entry unto itself.

Scopin' Out Skopje

I’ve long been a proponent of the idea that there are but three cultures in Eastern Europe—Russian, Turkish, and German—and much like Goldilocks and her porridge, each geographically-defined linguistic grouping has mixed and matched their own formula for getting it just right. Imagine, if you will, emptying the Middle East, and filling it with Russians, and asking those Russians—no, telling. The Russian imperative is far more effective, especially on Russians—to then go about their business as usual in an entirely alien framework built to accommodate a completely separate culture and religion. Give them a Turkish accent too for good measure. Such is Skopje. 
 

I don’t care what anyone says, I liked Skopje. I actually really liked all of Macedonia. Even though I had no idea what Macedonia even was before arriving, and while I’m still not ready to concede that the “Macedonians” aren’t merely a Tito-inspired ethnonym, I was willing to entertain their claims, if only to annoy the Greeks. Following in the vein that I have no idea what a ‘Macedonian’ actually is, I’m not sure they do either. The national historical museum was conveniently closed and all I could ascertain was that their national heroes are Mother Theresa (an ethnic Albanian) someone named “Glitzy Gal.” Their word for “Thank you” is suspiciously close to Bulgarian (again, Russian with a Turkish accent) and half of the country is ethnically Albanian.

It wouldn’t be the Balkans if it weren’t host to a diverse population and Macedonia’s Balkan status would most certainly be revoked if that diverse population didn’t create an explosive political situation. Saying "thank you" in Albanian to an Albanian will result in the warmest reception. Saying it in Macedonian to an Albanian or vice versa will result in a scowl. So...because it is so hard when to know who is who, the best option is to say it in English, and they are simply polite but show relative disinterest. Such is the prisoner's dilemma that is my time in Macedonia. The only tip-off is the mosques and Latin scripture in the Albanian parts of town, but I have received a few lectures already from Albanian bakers who withhold their pains au chocolat until I master the phonetics of "Falimenderit" (sp?). With such a dangling carrot I have complied and learned quickly.
 

In my extensive research of Balkan languages (which effectively consists of learning the niceties and key phrases like “Where is ___?” and “No, I don’t need a %$#&ing taxi”), I have picked up as much as I can here or there. Of course, the secret to learning new languages, besides figuring out what the letters mean and then translating them into English in your head and then creating a sentence, is to find one word you have in common with the representative of the Marshall Tito Party in Skopje, and by the time the two of you are finished screaming "TITO!" at each other enthusiastically, you will have so many free pins, postcards, posters, and information about Tito that it won't even matter that Macedonian isn't really a language.

What may or may not interest you is that a certain neighbourhood of Skopje is the only place in Europe (the world?) where Roma is an official language. I find this remarkably progressive, and could possibly push their application to the EU forward if only for the fact that then Sarkozy would have a more specific destination in mind the next time he bulk-purchases one-way plane tickets.

Mackin' on Makedonia

Let it be clearly understood that I have never really done any research before I embark on any form of journey. Aside from academic articles or back issues of National Geographic from the 1960s-80s, I have never owned a Lonely Planet or done any research on any country I have been to. I usually buy a map, and pore over it for hours in a café with my sleeves rolled up and, using my finely tuned geographer’s intuition, I decide where I am going to go based on what I think makes sense and what—to the rational western observer—should make sense. This is how I ended up in Strumica, Macedonia.

Something you don’t know about Strumica is that it is the Vegetable Capital of Macedonia. Even the Sally Rosa Guide to Europe never tipped me off about this. But don’t feel like less of a person for missing out on that little nugget of information because it would appear that the majority of the Macedonian border patrol staff is also unaware of Strumica’s magnetism in this regard. In fact, do not believe anything a Macedonian border guard tells you if you’re crossing into Macedonia from Bulgaria by foot at dusk in mid-February. If he or she tells you there is nothing to see, it is merely because Macedonia is so shrouded in mystery and oft-forgotten that residents themselves seem to forget why it makes a nice travel destination. What I did learn from them, however, was that Strumica is also the Mardi Gras capital of Europe—or at least the non-littoral Balkans, but that's really just semantics at this point.

While journalists and academics have written at length what can be described as “what is wrong with the Balkans” I myself can really only think of two things. The first, and arguably the most important, is that they have not embraced train travel. In fact, it’s rather difficult and slow to transit the Balkans by rail, and something I would only advise if you have an extra 7 hours every day to spend waiting in the train carriage for any number of reasons. I assumed trains would take me everywhere in Ex-oslavia, which was not true, and I was expecting any bus rides would be as cheap as borscht. Well, much like borscht itself these days*, the buses in Macedonia were most certainly not cheap.

The second problem is that for many in the former Yugoslavia, they have a bit of an inferiority complex which is sadly not necessary at all. As such, when I inquired in Strumica if there were apartments I could rent or people who had rooms to let for the night, they hastily told me that things were getting better and that there were hotels now, assuming that I could easily afford 20 euros for one night. Well, luckily, I could afford 20 euros in this particular stage of my trip, even if the room came without a breakfast. Unfortunately, the first impression I got from Macedonia is that they were in such a rush to shed their communist past that I only caught a few faded glimpses of Tito’s socialist paradise.

Actually, I have no idea what I was really expecting from Macedonia. So little, in fact, that I simply bought a bus ticket to Štip and assumed that it would be easy for me to find either a hostel or a university dorm, or even an apartment to sleep in. On arriving, I discovered the town woefully unprepared to deal with the outrageous demands of a native-English speaker. I spent only a few hours in Štip, but enough to decide it is definitely worth spending the number of hours I devoted to it. It had a central fortress on the mountain above the town, and I suppose the Wikitravel entry would do it better justice than I ever could with words. As the sun was setting and the rain closing in, I realised that there was little hope of me finding a place to sleep, so I set off for the grand metropolis of Skopje.

*No joke. The price of borscht, especially in Grand Forks, BC, has not felt any of the effects of the economic downturn. Not to say that it’s not worth it, but I suppose we should be reevaluating this phrase, if anyone besides me still even uses it.

Balking at the Balkans

I first entered Bulgaria in August 2007 as somewhat of an afterthought on the tail-end of an extensive Romanian excursion. I took a series of trains and minibuses to the border crossing at Vama Veche and from there flagged down a bus taking me to Varna. What followed was a week long whirlwind of the best food, most excruciating stomach pain, and a firm resolve to return and see more of it. And while my hardiness prepared me for the snow and cold that awaited me in February, 2010, the Bulgarian transportation network wasn’t exactly on my side. However, I was absolutely desperate to eat my favourite dish, Boyarski Kavarma, at one of the many terraced restaurants in the city of Veliko Tarnovo, and would stop at nothing in getting there. Two days in VT I spent morning, noon and night dining on Kavarma and finally, on the last day, my charm broke through to the saucy waitress who divulged the secret recipe to me. After cracking the code for the mysterious ingredient and my appetite sated, I was off, following the spring thaw through the wild Bulgarian hills (which may as well have been southern British Columbia) towards Sofia where I plotted my assault on the Western Balkans. After a brief Wikitravel of Macedonia to a) confirm my visa-free entry, and b) confirm its existence as a country, I bought a train ticket to the far southwest corner of Bulgaria to a town called Petrich, despite the hostel receptionists’ almost shrill demands that I merely take the bus to Skopje for 18 euros.

Having once written a review paper on the Balkans in the Western geographical imagination for a Fourth Year Seminar course on Post-Communist Europe, I was naturally the best-prepared person in the world to be visiting the region in February of 2010. What I was not expecting was to be immediately have this extensive knowledge put to the test by a local physicist-turned-taxi driver with whom I shared the train carriage. He insisted that young people, and in particular young Westerners, knew nothing about history or Bulgaria, and I was forced to defend my reasons for travelling alone, travelling to Bulgaria, and travelling to such obscure Bulgarian destinations as Petrich. Taking this as my queue, and drawing inspiration from Maria Todorova’s Imagining the Balkans, I launched a counterassault that, by the end of my diatribe on the Berlin Treaty of 1878, cemented for me a permanent invitation for homemade wine and a free pickup from the Sofia airport next time I was in town.

Armed with the confidence to debunk the Balkan Myth, I was prepared to cross into a country once fo forbidding and inaccessible due to its 80 euro visa bill in 2007. Macedonia has always had a certain allure to me, mainly because I have consistently overlooked it as a country. Like the majority of Western observers in the 1990s, I paid so little attention to the Balkans that every time I heard the name mentioned, I assumed it was a province of Greece or still part of Serbia. A note of caution to prospective travellers, however, is to NEVER say either of those things in the presence of a Macedonian. In fact, avoid the name F.Y.R.O.M. (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), do not say their language is similar to Bulgarian (much less IS Bulgarian), and do not question their lineage as Slavs arriving in the 7^th century who lay claim to the ancient Hellenistic name. Just a few things to watch out for.

If I had a difficult time explaining my route to Macedonia to the hostel receptionists in Sofia, then the sight of me strolling up to the Macedonian border, in gumboots, at dusk, was nearly impossible to articulate to the border guard. Luckily, border guards are some of the most pleasant people I have met in my travels, and even their limited grasp of English is enough for their sharp wit to shine through. The guard asked my purposes for visiting, for visiting on foot, for visiting in February, and what could have possible led me to want to visit Macedonia in the first place. And while he clearly was at odds with the Macedonian Tourism Bureau in terms of upselling his country, he was my first, Macedonian encounter, and an incredibly pleasant one. He told me that it was dangerous out and he would stop a car that would drive me to Strumica, the nearest city. I initially thought this was incredibly kind and generous of him, but it’s altogether more likely he was simply hoping to wipe his hands clean of any potential paperwork that would have inevitably arisen due to an English-speaking tourist dying on his watch. Still, the ends justified the means for me and I was happy.

I sat and had coffee with an elderly Macedonian man who spoke Russian to some degree, and when a car pulled up, I assumed it was for me. I approached, said “Dobra Vechera,” and when he opened the trunk, I went to put my bag in. The man stopped me, first pulled out a bag of wine from the trunk, went into the shop, came back, shut the trunk, and drove away. Evidently he was not my ride. Then a bus showed up and I was ushered in. As it turned out, it had come directly from Sofia, and left about 4 hours after I had. It also cost 10 euros the full way. The man wanted 5 euros from me to drive the remaining 20km leg of the journey, but taking a leap of faith that arbitrary pricing schemes rarely have any legal recourse, I gave him a 2 euro coin upon exiting the vehicle in Strumica, and walking away. What I had not expected to meet on the bus was an American who had flown in from Paris for the weekend. To visit Strumica. In Eastern Macedonia. In February. This naturally piqued my interest, and made me realise I needed to up my own aura of intrigue.

Roman(ian) Holiday

Well now, I seem to have considerably overshot this elusive spring thaw. It is, it has been for quite some time, and it is rumoured to continue to be, incredibly cold in Bucharest. On disembarking, two Quebecoise exclaimed, “Il fait crissement froid ici!”—my French lessons clearly did not end in Tunisia. Because things like ‘liability’ and ‘public mandate’ aren’t quite entrenched in Romanian civic administration, we gingerly tiptoed along the uncleared, icy sidewalks and waited in the -6 weather* for almost an hour for a bus to finally pick us up and take us to Gara du Nord, which was not an entirely helpful option. What was helpful was my packing Romanian currency to pay for my bus ticket, and those of the Quebecoise, a useful ploy to ensure a warm welcome and ice-cold Unibroue Chamblay Blanc when I finally go to Quebec.

Halfway to my hostel at midnight, slipping on ice and wet up to the knees, all I could think about was that my assessment of Converse All-Stars being the ideal all-season footwear possibly needed revisiting. My next goal in Bucharest, even before having a gander at Ceausescu’s Palace, was to find the Romanian equivalent to Canadian Tire, and buy some gumboots. Braving snow, stalled buses, and harsh wind, I made it to a Hornbach in the far reaches of the suburbs, and found the perfect pair of black gumboots for $10. When I returned to the hostel, the young receptionist was beside himself with disbelief:

“What are you wearing?! Oh my god, oh my god, what are those?!”
“Gumboots. It’s snowing.”
“Yes, I know it is snowing, but WHY are you wearing those? Oh my god. Those are for farmers. You look like you are…like, umm—how do you say?—ah yes, ‘From the willage.’ Everyone will laugh at you.”
“Yes, but then they will see I have an iPod Touch, and they will say, ‘Oh, he’s from the West. Those boots must be fashionable in New York or something.”
“Or they will say, ‘Oh look, that peasant stole some tourist’s iPhone.’”
*pause, look of contempt*
“Look, I have dry feet.”

Romanians are so fiery.

So, Romania gets cold. This is something I never would have expected despite constant stereotypes of Eastern Europe being frigid and perpetually gray. To be fair, I have never really placed Romania within the ambit of “Eastern Europe.” In 2007, I stayed in Targu Mures where a man informed me that Transylvania was all one needed in Romania. Once I cross the Carpathians, “[I’m] suddenly in Moldavia, Moldova, Ukraine ... in Eastern Europe!” Obviously I believe everything this man tells me, and most of my reading has led me to believe that Romania is decidedly Balkan. Why for, you ask? Simply because Romania is one of the few countries to have based its entire public infrastructure network on my sense of humour. Romanian trains are an absolute zoo, and there are so many zany antics by so many people going on at once that it is hard to understand what is ever going on.

For example, if you’re in Bucharest and planning a budget weekend getaway to Bulgaria, look no further than the following instructions:

1. Buy a ticket to Giurgiu. Without your knowledge, it will be the Giurgiu Nord, which is nowhere near the actual city of Giurgiu. This should be outrageously cheap and for the
2. Consult a map. You will learn that there are zero road crossings on the Danbue between these two countries, and only one rail crossing between Giurgiu, Romania and Ruse, Bulgaria. Reflect on the possibility that Turkey was probably never particularly serious about her European possessions.**
3. Inquire at the well-publicised and clearly demarcated “Informacion” booth at Gara du Nord. Ask to extend your ticket to Ruse. The following conversation with your charming hostess, whose cigarette break you would appear to have interrupted, will go:
   

   “What want?”
   “Hello, is it possible to extend my ticket to Ruse?”
   “No ticket here. Tickets at ‘ticket booths.’ This is Informacion.
   “Right, but is it possible to extend my ticket from Giurgiu to Ruse?”
   “No! It’s no possible to extend ticket. You go to Giurgiu.’
   “Okay, but—“
   “Ees NO possible!”
   “Can I extend the ticket on the train?”
   “Yes! Yes of course you can extend ticket on train! What you want here?”
   “Multumesc.”
   So. Fiery.

4. Wait for your train, which should be in the ballpark of 2 to 14 hours late, depending on the strength of the blizzard, and lethargy of track-clearers.
5. When you board the train, wait for the conductor and ask about a ticket to Ruse. He will tell you, “yes, yes, no problem” and then wink at you.
6. Wait for a man to come in with a clipboard collecting money for orphans. Give him some money and when he presses you for more, ask for a receipt for tax purposes. He will disappear.
7. Another man in the cabin will explain that you just supplied the man with the clipboard with alcohol money and that “there are no children” (this is sort of a lie because there are a lot of orphans in Romania). He’ll then explain to you that you’re in the wrong seat and that you need to go to another cabin. He will guide you there, and then another conductor will walk in and say, “Hello, yes, why are you in my office?” The man who was trying to rob you will have disappeared.
8. Wait for Giurgiu, and then hope the conductor forgot about you.
9. He won’t have, and will come in to ask for your ticket. He’ll remember your situation and ask for 10 lei ($3). You’ll ask for the ticket and he’ll explain that you don’t need a ticket.
10. Express concern.
11. He will then explain that a printed ticket would cost you 40 lei, but no ticket will cost you 10 lei.
12. Ask him to explain again.
13. Once you realise he is soliciting a bribe, give a knowing wink and then feel bad about perpetuating a corrupt system when you were raised better than that.
14. Arrive in Ruse and wait for half an hour to disembark because they are checking the train for whatever could be stowed away (typically drugs, contraband, or Turkish grandmothers).
15. Play the “English Card” and coerce everyone on the train to demand that your passport be stamped so that you may exit the train and withdraw money from an ATM to buy your ticket for the remaining journey.
16. Be happy you spent less than $10 in total for a 12 hour chunk out of your life.

See? Now people who pay 50 euros for a direct ticket on an InterCity train between Bucharest and Sofia miss all that. And from February 9 onwards, Bulgaria was my oyster.

*Yes, yes, -6 is nothing when you live in the Great White North, but I don’t live in the GWN. I’m soft and spend my winters either languidly reading classic literature under a palm tree in the tropics, or rusting in 2 and rainy Vancouver. Usually the latter.
**Yes, this is me employing gendered language. Deal.

Out of Africa

In a particularly hasty move, I hopped aboard a vessel late one night and fled Africa. I spent the last of my dinar on a family-sized spaghetti platter at a seemingly posh restaurant, waited in an atrociously chaotic line-up, and sat in the marine terminal at the Port of La Goulette reflecting on all that I have learned from my time on this majestic continent that has shaped—and dare I say been shaped by—me: namely, that the train between Tunis and La Goulette costs less than 40 cents, and so long as your boat is not 10 hours late in docking, you can avoid the $25 “friend tax” imposed on you by vulturous taxi drivers. Just a tip.

After a quick layover in Sicily, I was headed to another Latin country in the east, Romania. Nothing could be higher than my spirits on the morning on February 5th, 2010. A journal entry confirms this:

“...so I’m now sitting in Catania in the hot sun sipping a cappuccino and eating a chocolate croissant, things are not so different from Tunisia, despite the obvious price difference. I leave for Bucharest in a matter of hours. I took the train from Palermo to Messina, snapped a picture of the toe of the Italian boot, and then arrived in Catania last night. There is a festival going on for Santa Agata. There are churches everywhere on this island. It’s like Calgary with good food. It is 20 degrees, I am wearing a t-shirt, and presumably getting a tan. Yes, winter is closing out. Romania next! I can feel it! I can feel that the thaw is upon us!”