GETTING HOSTELS WITH THE HOMIES IN SOFIA AND BEOGRAD

Bulgaria is a bright spot in a sometimes dismal Balkan landscape. Away from the heavily touristed Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, Balkan Europe is an area best known for its senseless internecine squabbles and Yugoslav Communistic past. Like Albania, Bulgaria remains apart from all that, and is something of an enigma from the get-go. Named for the Eastern steppes tribal marauders who invaded the area not long after the Roman Empire’s collapse, and straddling a region comprising Greeks, Thracians, and later Turks, Bulgaria beame a conduit for Slavic immigration and to this day has the reputation as the oldest of southern Slav cultures. But they were never a part of Yugoslavia, and have moved quickly to distance themselves from the past.

Modern Sofia never sleeps. On the morning I arrived the Bukowski Bar next to the entrance of the hostel I’ve booked is still going strong from the night before as mid-morning creeps up. It’s taken me that long to find the place after a long walk from the bus station and the confusion arising from multiple McDonalds when directions depend on such landmarks. Alas and alack that hostel is full, but they’ve got another around the corner that shares an entrance with an Irish pub, apparently presided over by a real live Irish person, or at least a Brit. That’s who the patrons are. Thus a proud tradition finds fertile soil in the Balkans, that of the British ex-pat, scattered far and wide across the globe, putting down roots wherever the soil is deep enough to park an elbow and the beer strong enough to mitigate any regrets. This has been going on for years, as much a part of the Pax Britannica as limes and baked beans. I doubt sterling will drop so far on FX markets to change that any time soon.

Sofia’s not bad, maybe like a po’ boy’s London or at least Birmingham, plenty of decent food and coffee, bakeries as good as anywhere I know. After starving myself in Albania, too lazy to deal with currency exchange, I’m gorging in Sofia, plenty of foreign exchange since the transport companies won’t take €, and I had to cash a wad. I’d like to go on to Prishtina in Kosovo, but it looks like there’s no direct route so, since I’ve already passed through Skopje, I’m favoring a detour to Beograd in Serbia. That’ll be better any way, since I don’t want too many simple passes in my quest to ‘do’ every country, hopefully every major culture, in the world. Regional transportation is all flakey. The bus requires a transfer in Nis. The train won’t sell tickets until the hour before (?). It seems like I’m spending all my time in Sofia at the bus station.

So finally I decide to buy a bus ticket and try to enjoy the rest of my time in Bulgaria. There are lots of other places in the country to visit, of course, but winter’s hardly the optimum time to do it. Trying to wing it in a country without the local tongue is a test of will, also, as much as ability. It gets old. So does the surliness of the counter help. Would it hurt to smile a little or say ‘thank you’ once in a while? It’s just as easy and twice the fun. Maybe it’s a leftover of Communism, or maybe it’s part of the collective personality. Who knows? Strangely enough it seems in the Balkans that the more English they speak, the politer they are. Just the opposite is true in Thailand, where English is the language of aggression. At least now I know why Albanians considered themselves the nicest people in the world. They were comparing themselves to their neighbors! Sometimes personality traits like these are learned, not given. At least they’ve got nude women on TV after midnight in Sofia, so capitalism accomplished something. Thank God for small miracles.

By now I’ve got pretty good at reading Cyrillic, so that helps keep the belly full. Some words are almost the same. Except for the broken leg MAPKET is easily recognizable as ‘market’, pronounced exactly the same. I assume it’s a loan word, so it should. From there things gradually increase in difficulty. It’s like learning a secret code you invented as a child. PECTOPAHT is ‘restaurant’, pronounced exactly the same. It gets weirder than that of course. ‘Bar’ is 6AP and ‘bazaar’ is 6A3AP, all pronounced like their Latin cousins. Now they’re looking more like techie passwords. If I had a Cyrillic keyboard we could go on, but I don’t, so you get the idea, right? Of course there are some incongruities like ‘HOBO’ (pronounced ‘novo’= ‘new’ of course), advertising new merchandise in fashionable boutiques. About the only food they bother to write in English is pizza, assuming that’s all we eat I guess. Sometimes it seems like that’s all THEY eat, not even bothering with the tomato goop in Cuba. It’ll fill you up at least. It can also constipate you. I may be used to the dry little goat pellets that pass as traveler’s turds, but that doesn’t mean I like them. Drink lots of liquids. Or you can smoke lots of cigarettes like they do. That’ll keep you slim, if it doesn’t kill you first. It’s killing me.

I left Sofia… and headed for Beograd, but not without some trepidations. The reign of terror by Slobodan and his slobs is still fresh in the memory and apparently on the maps with references to things like ‘Republika Srpski’ and other entities that I have no knowledge of. Apparently buses from Beograd to Sarajevo stop on the outskirts, on the Serb side of town. Huh? What century is this? But still it feels like a heartland for something, in contrast to the tentativeness I’ve felt so far in the countryside. There are black cemetery head-stones and red-tile roofs in Serbia, and garden spots well defined. But this bus is half empty, like most I’ve been on. At least they tend to run on time. I have to change buses half the way in Nis so I’m assuming that’ll be a self-evident process. It’s not that easy, but I figure it out and continue on, despite the fact that no one speaks English. By the time I get to Beograd it’s mid-afternoon. By now I’ve gotten wise and book a hostel right close to the bus station. That helps for blitzkrieg tours. The place is bright and cheery and since the private rooms cost triple the dorm price, I opt for the dorm. I figure it’ll be good experience, and it is.

The only problem is the staff’s constant cigarette smoking, but other than that it’s way cool except for the loss of privacy. There’s got to be a trade-off, right? It’s all men, too, from Germany, Australia, and one who I later find out is Mexican, from Guadalajara. Like I say the G8 of international travel is now expanding to G30. I consider that proof of justice in the world. He even speaks good English. I’ll feel hurt if he rebuffs my Spanish, of course, but go for it anyway, Psycholinguistics 101. It’s getting harder to speak foreign languages, at least for an American, with the advent of world English. But we’re cool, talking about things Latino into the night, fueled by the jug of decent Serbian beer being offered. I decide I like hostels; they give a safe haven and source of information to travelers and interaction with others where such is almost impossible with locals. I might open one in LA, which could probably use it.

Beograd is pretty uninspiring, but not so bad. It could use a coat of paint. They say nightlife is the big attraction, but that doesn’t much work for me any more. Alcohol is poison; handle with caution. I see no bragging rights involved in being able to ‘handle your liquor.’ If that’s the goal, then what’s the point? Me, I got travel plans, on to Kosovo, soon to be the newest country in the world, all the while thinking about Ethiopia, so bored I am with the cold weather I’ve had the last month. That Ethiopian visa is burning a hole in my passport. Stay tuned.

NIGHT BUS TO SOFIA VIA SKOPJE

There is no direct bus from Tirana, Albania, to Sofia, Bulgaria any more, so you have to transfer in Skopje, Macedonia. Sounds simple, right? Nothing is as simple as it sounds, especially in the back woods of Europe, the forgotten lands, the old country. The bus to Skopje leaves from the ‘muddy patch in front of the train station’ at 9am so I get there bright and early to get my ticket, me and a handful of locals and another backpacker who seems to want nothing to do with me, probably some Euro-trash who’s ‘more backpack than thou’, afraid that contact with another groover might spoil the authenticity of his experience. Maybe he’s right. Two can play that game I guess. Who needs him anyhow? He seems to be rapping with the drivers, probably hasn’t even realized yet that they don’t understand a word of his English pidgin shit. So we head off into the hazh-pazh countryside of Albania, broken bruised and beaten, not yet having received the coat of paint that the capital has, a splash here, a stripe there, and a mosaic in between, anything to try to forget the lost decades of Commonist rule and the psychological misgivings that can ensue. Somehow Nature always survives regardless of men’s mistakes. Still Albania seems a bit more broken than most, with neither plan nor order.

By the time we approach the border we’re high into the hills again, past 19^th century-style mining operations and failed industry. By this time I’ve broken the ice with my fellow backpacker. Turns out he’s Croatian and a really nice guy, hardly the arrogant a**hole I’d imagined. I feel foolish, but not as much as I would have if we’d traveled the whole way unspeaking. He’s on his way to India via Istanbul and speaks good English, having practiced much in the tourist industry of Dubrovnik. His name is Mladen. There are a lot of backpackers from non-traditional Western countries now, including China. The common bond is a modern western ‘tude, a pocket and a head full of change, and a decent command of English. Upon reaching the border itself we find it so clogged that we change buses to avoid formalities; big mistake. As we continue on the other side it’s soon snowing. Even Mladen looks at me and goes, “WOW!” And I’m thinking, ‘Don’t you freak out or I’ll really freak. You’re a local!’ But I didn’t say anything. It’s been a long hard winter for Europe.

We make it through the snow okay, but that’s not good enough. The old bus pops a gasket or something and soon is wheezing like an old woman climbing six flights of stairs. We pull over and the driver puts on his greasy mechanic’s apron like, “That’ll show the bus who’s boss!” Yeah, right. This old bag of nuts and bolts ain’t goin’ nowhere. So we wait and wait and wait for the company to send a van to pick us up. Mladen’s going to miss his bus to Istanbul, but that’s good for me, since he’ll continue on to Sofia, like me, instead. At this point his presence, and command of All Things Slavic are very reassuring to me, particularly since we’ve become quite friendly. I realize at this point how vulnerable and insecure I am, hardly the master traveler and linguist I may come off as sometimes, to myself if not others, whether intentionally or otherwise. Down deep I’m a scared little child. The only difference is I’ve been there before, lived my whole life there in fact, trembling before the vagaries of Circumstance and creating new gods to save me. Bottom line: I hate that sinking feeling when you’re stuck out of luck and there’s nowhere to pass the buck. I know it well.

The bus driver finally flags down an empty van and pays the van driver to take us on into town. Hell, we could’ve done that an hour ago. That’s what we would’ve done ten years ago without cell phones and the miracles they bring. So by the time we finally limp into the station at Tetova, Macedonia, it’s dark and cold and lonely. I’m really glad Mladen is there. Maybe he’s glad, too, but I don’t ask. Guys don’t do that. Problem is, the bus to Sofia leaves from Skopje, and that’s still an hour and another bus ride away, something I didn’t like in the original plan, and am now regretting. If you want to traipse the Balkans, bring a friend. You might need it. We persevere on to Skopje, where there’s a bus to Sofia at midnight. So we buy tickets and have time to kill; things are looking up. It’ll be Sofia by morning, an up-and-coming tourist destination, there and Bulgaria in general. But now we’ve got three hours to kill so we trade stories and talk trash and eat more oily pies, which Mladen explains to me is ‘real Balkan food’, as if I didn’t already know after living on them in Tirana. He also tells me that Macedonia has the best music in the Balkans, and good food, too.

At first I regret passing through without really stopping but the more I see of it, the less that Skopje agrees with me, apparently splayed out wide, unfriendly to walkers. There’s nothing worse for a backpacker than that. ‘Backpacker’ may not mean ‘hiker’ anymore, but it definitely means ‘walker.’ Going through twelve countries in two months, I’m entitled to a few quickie transits, aren’t I? Macedonia is the TAFKAP of countries, officially the ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’, FYROM, apparently to appease the sensitivities of Greeks for whom the concept of ‘Macedonia’ has entirely different connotations. I don’t know about the music or the food, but the women certainly seem to exude a certain fashionable sexiness that I haven’t elsewhere in the Balkans… or much of anywhere for that matter… and we’re in the bus station for God’s sake! But such things hardly interest me any more these days… yeah, right.

This is Cyrillic country now, everything written in the alphabet that the first millennium Orthodox monks Cyril and his brother what’s-his-name so methodically adapted from Greek to fit the Slavic tongue. If Albanian seemed foreign, this seems downright alien! Fortunately I’ve already got a head start in Greece, and the difference between this and that are less than the differences between that and the Roman alphabet, so my little brain’s already going to work on it. Unfortunately all the Slavic alphabets seem to have minor differences between them, so total mastery may never be complete, but still it’s nice to be able to read a menu, regardless of whether I can actually speak the language. People talk about the difficulties of Croatian, exclaiming, “At least they use Roman letters!” when in fact that’s the easiest part. I wish I could absorb a language acoustically as fast as I can its graphic symbols. That may be the one part of language that you actually can ‘pick up.’ Most things you can pick up from foreign tongues I wouldn’t take home to show Mom.

At least there’s a real bus station in Skopje. That’s refreshing. Tirana had nothing of the sort. ‘Muddy patch’ indeed! But our mignight bus is late and I’m freezing outside waiting for it. I mean FREEZING! I’ve been cold this whole trip, but this is ridiculous! Our bus finally shows up and we pile on quickly. Macedonia passes under our wheels, almost an entire country traversed in darkness. At least the border crossing to Bulgaria is civilized; they collect the passports then bring them back all stamped up and ready to go. Mladen had to go discuss something, but came back unperturbed. When the bus finally pulls into Sofia the sun is rising. Mladen and I say our goodbyes and I go for a cup of espresso. It costs less than the 3-in-1 Nescafe. It’s good, too. Things are looking up.

TWO DAYS IN ALBANIA

Travel gets harder south of the Danube or north of Greece, depending on which way you’re coming or going, especially when your stated goal is to visit every last country, regardless of how small or insignificant. The term ‘Balkanization’ takes on new meaning. At the same time that Europe is doing something truly radical in the history of history, putting petty differences and phony nationalism aside and uniting with its neighbors on the basis of common interests and mutual protection, the Balkans are splintering into the tiniest national groups imaginable. Ironically this is in spite of the fact that most of them are of similar language and history, south Slavic by language and race, and united for most of the last fifty years as Yugoslavia, Communist and proud. Now they’re broken up into a baker’s half-dozen of currencies and policies and borders, and another’s in the works, Kosovo being shepherded through its infancy by the UN, which has apparently decided that a region can unilaterally declare independence… and get it. Cool, I might want to try that some day. While this may all be interesting politically and historically, it makes for some tricky travel to see them all, certainly more than a quick ferry over to Dubrovnik to feel like you’ve seen and done Yugoslavia.

But none of that applies to Albania, which has always been a case unto itself, but a case of what it’s not clear. Not Slavic at all but presumably descendants of the ancient Illyrians, themselves apparently the progenitors of northern Europe’s first distinctive culture at Hallstatt, modern Albania arrives on the world stage tentatively. This was a place so closed to the world for four decades under Enver Hoxha that not even other Communists were allowed to visit. Croatians in Dubrovnik are closer to Albania than to their cousins at Split, but none ever crossed over to visit in the Hoxha years. Most still haven’t. Now little of his decades-long regime remains but the one-man bunkers dotting the countryside meant to stave off an imagined foreign invasion. How they would withstand a smart-bomb from above is another question. Albania today is still struggling toward a modern economy, with the capital Tirana alight with bars and cafes while the countryside is a hazh-pazh of decrepit mines and local agriculture.

A whole neighborhood of Athens close to the Larissa train station is devoted to inter-Balkan transportation, especially buses to Albania. I was a little apprehensive when they seemed hesitant to sell me a ticket, but there was no problem, just not many backpackers to Albania! The ride from Athens to Tirana passes by through the night, only snatches of the Greek coastline visible by moonlight. The Albanian drivers seem to love the modern Greek highways, clipping along at break-neck speed only slightly moderated by the need to flick cigarette ashes out the window in a gesture of contempt for the rules, if not the actual passengers who indirectly pay their salary. Prohibitions against smoking on the bus apparently do not apply to the driver. Approaching the border we climb high into the hills finally reaching the Albanian border some time after midnight. At that point we all have to leave the bus and queue up to get our passports stamped in a ritual that goes back to time immemorial, aka Checkpoint Charlie. It’s cold, too, I’m here to testify. The superhighway on the Albania side lasts until out of sight of the border, at which point it suddenly degenerates into a country road more typical of the nation, winding through crooks and snags down lonely hillsides into more populated valleys. Thus the country’s long isolation is somehow justified as a consequence of its own geographical fences.

We disembark into the Tirana morning cool but crisp. At least it’s not raining and the sun is up, so I’ve dodged a bullet. Part of the challenge in this space in this time is dodging weather. Winters can be unpredictable even without global climate change, but this one’s been especially so, one of Europe’s worst in years, even chilling the North African coast. Night-riding is great for saving some bucks, but not good for sightseeing. For better or worse you usually have no choice over the matter, and in these parts where the riders are mostly locals, migrant workers at that, night buses are typical, fine if they arrive in daylight, not 3am, even better if they arrive at a station full of shops and coffee, not merely a streetside drop spot. Tirana has no such luxuries. It’s better than Bamako no doubt, but hardly up to modern standards of convenience. One of the main embarkation points is described by Lonely Planet as ‘the muddy spot in front of the train station.’ Mustering buses around the central train station is typically Balkan.

Of course finding a hostel with no sign is always something of a challenge, but I get there finally, with the help of my laptop perpetually open to web pages I’ll need later, fine till my battery poops out. Finding a wi-fi signal is easier then finding a place to plug in. Finding somebody who speaks English seems to be even harder. In these parts, outside of a few people in the tourist industry it’s mute barter and wishful thinking. Smile a lot; it helps. Hardest of all is using a credit card. Supposedly I guarantee all my advance ho(s)tel bookings with my credit card with the threat of being charged a night’s rent if I no-show, but I can’t believe they’d do it, not for sympathy but lack of banking savvy and tax dodging. Fortunately I find my hostel fairly easily, notable considering many such places in Eastern Europe are converted apartment flats with no clue to their existence but the name above the door buzzer. Fortunately their unofficial nature has some advantages, like early check-in, nice after an all-night bus ride.

The problem with frequent country and currency changes of course is that it makes it hard to manage your money without having too much or too little of a currency in a country you’ll only see for a day or two or three. When I realized I was not in love with Albania and had no long-term plans for the future it was a toss-up whether to change more money or make do with the $5 I changed at the border, hard to know without knowledge of local prices, and facing a long bus ride to Bulgaria. After stocking up on carrots and bread and apples, I chose the latter, deciding it’d be enough. I would’ve had cheese too, but the cheese I bought turned out to be butter. That’s different. So rather than violate my restrictions against traveling with butter I butter up an entire baguette in preparation for the trip. Fortunately it lasts me the entire day traveling, but with little variety while in Tirana itself, mostly ‘byreks’, the local version of Mediterranean oily pies. They’re cheap and pretty good, if boring after many many. I tell myself it’s olive oil.

I absolutely refuse to study the language of a country I’ll only visit a few days and which only has a few million speakers. Still I have to eat, and I don’t stay in fancy hotels with fancy English-language menus. The little bit of the language I manage to glean is interesting enough, though by necessity I’m mostly limited to those words recognizable through the Indo-European family, in this case mostly Italian. I don’t know if that’s because the country was practically annexed by Mussolini at one point, and the Italian language’s usage enforced, or because the two both borrowed heavily from Greek way back when in the formative years of Europe. Maybe but for a few accidents of history, instead of getting romantic with our lovers, we’d all be getting Illyrian, or lyrical… hey, wait a minute…whatever… So when I go to the market I start using the Italian I know, given the low level of English I’ve encountered so far. It works. Whether the words are correct or whether they think I’m Italian or whether they use Italian as lingua franca between the local dialects of Gheg and Tosk I don’t know, maybe never will. International English sucks till you need it. Anything’s better than mute barter.

Albanians seem nice enough, though hardly ‘the nicest people in the world’ as one local describes his people. At one point when I was taking a picture of a painted wall obviously commenting on the country’s previous Communist rule, one self-styled street-punk even challenges me threateningly with something like “are you Albanian?” I don’t like people getting in my face unprovoked of course, so I return his anger and up him one with something like, “Is there a problem? If so, bring it on over.” That’s what he wants, right? What’s the difference? He can’t understand me anyway, any more than I can understand him. This is just attitude vs. attitude. He doesn’t need to know that I’m ready to haul ass at a moment’s notice; maybe he is, too. Maybe I’ll call Kissinger. It passes without any further incident and I walk the streets in an anger/adrenalin buzz. If there’s one thing I hate worse than confrontation, it’s people getting in my face.

Casinos line the streets, typical in former Communist countries. Washington didn’t win the war; Las Vegas did. The petrol stations are named ‘Castrati’. I like that. Back in my room it’s mostly EmpTV in the local dialects with France’s TV5 alone among the multi-nationals, so I brush up on my French. At least I’ve got wi-fi in my room. With only $2 in local currency to buy food, I don’t have much of that. No matter, I’ll get more across the border, in Macedonia on the way to Sofia, Bulgaria. See you there.

ODE TO A GRECIAN URGE- MUESLI AND PRICE FLAKES

I didn’t expect Athens to be as romantic as Rome- that would be almost a contradiction in terms- but I did expect it to be more romantic than say, Phoenix or St. Louis. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but still if Rome’s logical descendent is Paris, then Athens’ might be New York, or even Mexico City, cities for whom substance overrules style and whose similarities are greater than its differences in the long view of history. Athens’ place in history is assured by its great thought, after all, more than its great works of art and architecture. Rome had the great works, though originally those were mostly copies of the work in Athens.

Where classical Rome truly excelled was its highways, the world’s standard of excellence until the 1800’s. Most of ‘romantic’ Rome occurred during the Renaissance following the lead of Florence, much of it still standing.

Athens missed out on all that, the Grecian center long shifted to Constantinople, whose intellectual and artistic elite helped stimulate the Italian Renaissance when the Ottoman Turks ended their little world in 1453. Modern Greece is defined as much by what happened since the decline of its Classical Age as by what happened before, and that includes a lot of influence by others, including Slavs and Muslims, especially Turks. This is a great reduction from the imperial days of Alexander and Constantine, when Greek was spoken far beyond its current home turf, even the language of many Jews, for whom Hebrew was long extinct as a spoken language. But all was not lost, though Constantinople certainly was. But that’s all history. Modern Athens is a study in contrasts, if I may be permitted the cliché. Side by side are found the old and new, the local and the international, the museum and the machine shop, the sacred and the profane (okay, so two clichés?). Somehow it all seems to work, though there are undercurrents and overtones. The Acropolis was closed for several days because workers were striking over lack of pay for three months. They even closed the airport the day before I landed.

As with most cities my favorite thing is to just take long walks. It ain’t Rome, but it ain’t bad, plenty of cheap street food, mostly variations on the Euro-pastry theme with the addition of such Greek faves as gyros and souvlaki. Restaurants don’t seem much different except for the price, so I haven’t really ventured there. If you go to the market, be careful around the meat department. These butchers are aggressive, venturing into the aisles to snag customers, WITH CLEAVER IN HAND! There’s plenty of souvenir stuff around the Acropolis, which is a sizeable area. Other than there, neighborhoods are pretty unremarkable culturally and architecturally, not much of note. What IS of note is the number of so-called ‘sex shops’, probably second only to Amsterdam in the Western world. You don’t find such detritus in Paris, just tired old hookers wearing fur coats in Pigalle. Once again comparisons to New York come to mind. TV’s even worse, or better, depending on your point of view. Where the Italian nudies come out on a couple channels after midnight, Athens has four or five channels dedicated to it all day. If they’re not selling sex, they’re off the air. Is this what the rest of the world thinks of the West? Probably.

The Greek language is interesting, though I haven’t studied much, mostly just learning the alphabet by comparing dual-language subway signs and so forth, similar to learning the Khmer alphabet if you already know Thai, if that analogy helps. A lot of words are then recognizable through Latin’s absorption of them, and on down to the modern languages. You don’t need a Ph.D. to know that the Greek on that ‘Exit’ sign spells ‘Exodos’. It’s like a little linguistic genome project, something to keep my brain from atrophy. If the multiple spellings of some subway and road signs are disturbing, feel some comfort in the fact that the Greek spellings are similarly mutated, almost letter for letter. Whether that’s due to grammatical inflection or not, I’m not sure. I hope so. Erratic romanizations of spelling in Asia are one thing; erratic romanizations of spelling in the cradle of the Western world are another. Greek doesn’t seem far removed from other Western languages, especially Romance ones, no tones or clicks or anything weird like that. They say it’s hard, but I’m not sure why, maybe intimidated by the alphabet. Alas and alack, even if you master it, you’ve only got ten million potential speaking partners, so hard to get excited, except for the genome aspect. Sanskrit is related, even more ancient, and a billion modern speakers through derivative languages. See you in Delhi.

Do I like Athens? I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure I don’t love it. The countryside might be totally different, the islands and all. Unfortunately this isn’t really the season for that, being winter, though there was no shortage of activity at the port in Piraeus. That’s the only passenger wharf that’s ever felt like an airport to me, with constant comings and goings. This is more like the Metro tour for me, cities and subways. There are some savings to be had in the off-season, too. I’m okay as long as the temperature gets up to 10C-50F during the day. Colder than that and I’ll re-schedule. In short, drivers suck, but I’ve seen worse. TV sucks, but that’s universal. People are… well, the New York analogy comes back. Food’s okay, but nothing spectacular. The level of English is not bad, at least for the simple dealings between most tourists and locals. Best of all, the Acropolis itself is stupendous, its hilltop location incredible and a clear link (for me at least) to architectonic structures which preceded it and the classic Western architecture which followed. Height implies authority and divinity.

A word should be said about Athens taxi drivers. Taxi drivers in Athens are the lowest breed of mankind, a vulture-like half-breed predator for whom international travelers are only so much carrion baggage, covered by no higher law and ripe for picking. Such taxi scum should be decapitated and heads hung from the city gates as a warning to the unrighteous. I’m not saying they ruined my stay here, but I’m not saying they didn’t, either. Even Lonely Planet informs you that you’ll probably be ripped off if you take one from the airport. Score one for Lonely Planet. But when your plane lands after midnight your options are limited, and that’s when the rip-offs double. Part of the reason I’m heading on to Albania from here is that the buses leave within walking distance of my hotel, no taxi transactions required. I don’t need a murder conviction on my record. In all fairness, Athens is flakey about pricing in general, and I’ve gotten the benefit of that at least once. That’s the best I can say.

From here it’s on to Tirana, hoping the weather gets a little spring in its step. It’s still snowing in Bulgaria, and that’s tentatively next, after Albania, Sofia looking pretty good from a cost and convenience perspective. But I might follow the coast a while if I have to, continuing my research into how borders define cultures. But wait, just as I thought I was ready to stuff this note into a bottle and set it adrift, another interesting thing happened- Monday. Or rather, nothing happened. Stores are closed Mondays, all of them. You can barely find a cup of coffee. I know museums close Monday, but stores? Maybe it’s a holiday, Greek Orthodox Carnival. I still see festivities on TV. Always stay in a new place until you’re bored. That way you have no regrets, knowing you haven’t missed anything, at least nothing you wouldn’t have missed no matter how long you stayed. In general I’ve had good prices, good weather, and good conditions in Athens, so I’m good. This is my life after all, not my vacation. The muesli’s gone and it’s time to move on. Stay tuned.

GOT CARNIVAL? MAKE MINE MALTA WITH A PIZZA

My first impression of Malta driving in from the airport: WOWW! Jesus! God! Baal and his brother (Z.) Bub! My second impression the next day: WOW. My third impression a full twenty-four hours after the first: wow? But that’s still good, because I’m not much the ‘wowie zowie’ type like some of my xxxx’s anyway. Ask anyone; but you know that already, don’t you? Even though I’m American, I’m not a loud extrovert, rather more the European exxi-stenchy type, a French shrug long incorporated into my vocabulary of body language and a German glare ready just in case. But Malta’s pretty incredible, ‘the island fortress’ lying exposed mid-Mediterranean as waves of Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, and assorted Crusading Knights, Teutons, and Hospitallers all took a poke at her and tested her resilience and hospitality and longevity. The British were not to be left out of course and proceeded to fashion one of the most interesting of their proxy island/city/states, moreso maybe even than Hong Kong, Trinidad, Singapore, Gibraltar or Penang. Apparently Malta passed the tests of time. The stories are legendary even if you’re not a conspiracy nut, but it’s interesting to see how it all played out, if indeed it’s yet time to draw conclusions.

Some facts about Malta may surprise you (I already told you they speak a dialect of Arabic)- Malta is a full-fledged member of the European Union, even using the €uro as currency (they don’t all do that); Malta is a Lesser Antilles-size island with a large population of almost a half million, something like an urbanized St. Kitts of the Mediterranean; Malta is Christian, VERY Christian. The thumbnail sketch would be something like: modern Malta is a combination of three cultures- Arab, Italian, and British. While there would be a lot of truth to that statement, it would gloss over a lot, also. True, they tend to speak Arabic, eat Italian, and drink British, but they hardly look like the typical North African ‘Arab’, whether the Berberish Maghribbis or Nilotic Egyptians. They are as light-skinned and fair-featured as any Italian, if not Brit, and they are as fashionable and sexy as any Brit, if not Italian. Apparently their dialect of Arabic is close to Tunisian with a large admixture of Italian and other European influences, not surprising since everybody, literally EVERYBODY, speaks English, in a post-colonial situation not dissimilar to that of the Philippines or Malaysia, all with distinct national languages but anxious not to lose their English. More than a few speak Italian also.

Where did the Arabic come from? It probably started developing slightly B.C. with the first historical inhabitants, the Phoenician/Carthaginians, who would have spoken a north Semitic language, now extinct, closely akin to Hebrew and only slightly more distant from central Semitic Arabic, a language not even attested at the time of Christ, and probably non-existent, having not yet fully diverged from earlier Semitic languages. Central Arabia was not the most likely place for settlement, depending heavily on the domestication of the camel, which came long after most of the other best-known of ‘man’s best friends’. The Mediterranean itself has NOT been settled since time immemorial either, a fact which probably prejudices many European historians against prehistorical sea-based migration, since it took us so long to get our sea legs, not surprising since we apparently mustered our forces originally on the Asian steppes. European history is about horses, not boats. The first explorers of the Mediterranean islands found pygmy elephants. They killed them and ate them all of course, leaving huge piles of bones and lots of empty bottles of barbecue sauce. ‘Nuff said.

But when the Maltese came they built; civilization has been here as long or longer than anywhere, some seven thousand years, and featuring the oldest free-standing structure in the world. The original language would have been overwhelmed by the Arabic brought in by the same Arabs who occupied Sicily for many years and were the other main conduit for classical Greek learning to re-enter the West from Islamistan, the main one being the Andalusian connection of Arab and Jewish culture. My first impression on entering Valletta resembles the pictures I’ve seen of Jerusalem’s white stone houses sprawling low over the hillsides. I feel like I’ve just jumped to the Middle East without traversing the intervening distances. True, Morocco has some similarities but that seems more akin to Spain and even Mexico than the actual Middle East, i.e. adobe (an Arabic word via Egyptian). Valletta is the main town on modern Malta, though increasingly it’s more the tourist center than the business center, dearer in price and affection. Still, unless you’re looking for a Canary Islands-type generic beach hotel across the bay at Sliema, this is where you come. The earliest colonizers went to a high place not surprisingly called Mdina by the Arabs. Even Paul the founder of Christianity washed up on the beach here they say. They say a lot of things. I guess it’s only fitting that Malta wound up Christian. If the liquor don’t get you, then the pasta will.

If pressed I might have guessed that Malta was Christian, but I had no idea there was a pre-Lenten Carnaval. It’s not bad either, though not the sexy affair that Rio’s Carnaval has evolved into, nor Trinidad’s either, from what I hear. This one’s definitely for kids, and they rise to the occasion, all dressed up in allegorical costume. The floats may be a bit pre-fab and lacking in individuality, but the community spirit behind it is good, and it may in fact be closer in fact to the original than any of them, hard to say now that Rome is only reinstituting its own after a long period of dormancy. It’s certainly better than what I saw last year at Barcelona, and I’d be tempted to say I like it better than the drunken bash at N’awlins, but… naah. I like New Orleans, except from a jail cell. It’s definitely no match for the affair they put on at Recife in Brazil, which is a work of folk expression and dedication second to none. Malta’s has some similarities to the Brazilian event with its grandstand displays and performances, but that’s where the similarities end. There are no alcoholic beverages for sale on the streets here, though I’m sure you could find some if you wanted. That piss for sale on the street in Recife wasn’t much good anyway. The scene at the local Burger King and McDonald’s has got to be seen to be believed, though. I notice some of the local girls sporting big exposed British bellies now that Kate Winslett has made it okay to be a big ol’ gal (with ensuing dress-size inflation). Burger King will get you there fast.

Of course the problem with parties is that they end, leaving the streets desolate. Then the rains came. Fortunately I’ve already booked a flight on to Athens via Romefor less than $150, so I’m okay. Next cheapest with daily flights is $7-800. Is Malta what modern Arab culture would be like if the Prophet hadn’t turned such a profit with men who’d rather see their women in veils than bikinis? Maybe, but the question is probably moot since neither the race nor the language would likely have spread this far without Islamic conquest. Where else would you go to even test the theory now that Beirut and Christian Lebanon have been trashed to Hell and back? Dubai hardly counts, even though the international airport DOES have an Irish pub in it. Nevertheless there is a Mediterranean physical type which predates not only Islam and Christianity, but probably all Semitic and European cultures, and there’s no more historic animosity between them than anyone else. Most of the Old Testament wars of extermination were between related Semitic groups, though the Philistines (Palestinians) did seem to have sea-gypsy roots and routes before ending up.... guess where? The Gaza strip.

What’s the conclusion on Malta? Malta is cat country, maybe not so much as a ‘real’ Arab country, but not much competition from dogs nonetheless. You are what you speak. That proves it for me. Still the question remains: which culture is mas macho, Islamic/Arab or European/Christian, and which is plus femme? We already know where Asia stands. Maybe this is the true dialectic of history, not ideas nor social classes but the struggle for sexual dominance. What else? They’ve got an energy drink here called ‘Cocaine’, but that may not be specific to Malta. It should do well. They’ve also got Thailand’s M-150 which, last I heard, was banned everywhere due to its ingredients, so who knows? The Labor Party here seems to have the best pubs. I guess they learned something from the British. The Chinese here still have no major presence, their food mostly being the high-price delicacy it still is in most parts of northern Europe. For a minute I thought I’d found a genuine Chinese fast-food ‘takee-outee’, but no, there were kebabs on the menu, albeit with sweet-and-sour sauce. Where does that kind of Chinese food come from? Urumqi? The local food’s okay with me, and quite cheap away from the tourist areas.

But me, I’m ready for some warm weather, or at least some sunshine, or die trying. I didn’t come to the Mediterranean to wear my long johns (gwanni lungo in Maltese, but don’t quote me). Of course Tunis, which I left a few short days ago because of the rain, is now sunny and mild, so there you go. Don’t try to predict the weather, not in February. I seem to be surfing a cold front. Genoa was over 70F yesterday, far north of here. But there are things more important really, like reasonable accommodation. The room I have booked in Athens claims free Net, communal kitchen, and private bath all for less then $35. There’s no breakfast, but I’m tired of other peoples’ breakfasts. Who eats salami for breakfast anyway? I guess I do when they’re giving it away. My room in Malta is cramped and cold for over $40, but the service is good and so’s the wi-fi, but only in common areas. The water’s so hot it vapor-locks, making me want to piss in the sink I’m so cold. But Malta’s great. I had no expectations, so was pleasantly surprised. Still I hope to hang in Athens a while. I’m on solid ground now, no choke points, so no rush. See you there.

TWO DAYS IN TUNISIA

So I caught the ferry to Tunis, me and the Tunisians and the assorted adventurer with his commando-girl love interest. Anybody who thinks that Muslims are a bunch of brown-skinned losers would love this ferry (that’s not my opinion btw). I guess long-distance ferries are the Mediterranean equivalent of Greyhound buses in the US. By contrast long-distance buses in Europe are mostly the exclusive province of backpackers, since most people travel by train, and buses in fact hardly exist in some countries. Watching cars board the ferry was like watching East Germans crossing the border into the West for the first time, almost twenty years ago, their Ladas loaded with their scarce possessions, ready to ditch it all for a new life in the western lands, urban legends sight unseen. Of course in this case the Fiats are loaded with air conditioners and refrigerators and all the other technological artifacts de rigeur up north but hard to find in the Sahara. Foot passengers are a bit more limited, but tend to carry at least their weight in luggage, and more than a few blankets. That’s what I wish I had, because a cold front is moving with us to the south. I hope we can outrun it. Then there are the ubiquitous Chinese businessmen scouring the globe for opportunities. They’re everywhere now.

Ferries don’t seem to run on time so I had visions of the ‘boat from Hell’ as we finally departed from Rome’s port of Civitavecchia. It was a long cold night in steerage; apparently they reserve their best heaters for the cabins. The Tunisians didn’t mind of course with their blankets and their fava farts. They took the cushions off the seats and put them on the floor then slept with their shoes off like nothing was more normal in the world, while I huddled in my single jacket trying to conserve body heat by exhaling with my mouth and re-inhaling with my nose (I’m joking). We made a stop in Trapani before crossing the strait to Arab country, but nobody got off; we’d already passed through Immigration in Rome. We must have made up some time somewhere because we pulled into Tunis right on time, twenty-one hours after leaving Rome. So did the cold front. It’s raining and chilly in the night air. I zip right to the front of the Immigration line and breeze on through. There’s no regulation of taxis there so you’re at the mercy of their basic instincts, though I suppose it could have been worse, e.g. Tangier, or Buenos Aires, or countless other places that fleece helpless tourists right off the boat or at least look the other way.

At least my hotel in Tunis has got heat, a fact that’s not lost on me as I consider my onward options. I sleep on it. They’ve also got my passport. I’ve never seen that done except in communist countries. Apparently that’s to ensure payment… so I pay up. Duh… why didn’t you just say so? The next day is still grayish and cold, so I need to chart my stars immediately so as to avoid last minute stress and confusion. There IS no ferry to Malta any more, dag nabbit! I knew it! Now I’m really wishing I’d booked a return ferry segment back to Sicily, especially since it was the same price as the OW, a fact I found out only after booking the OW (or ALMOST at least; I refused to re-check for fear of kicking my head senseless, knowing that if it were only 2-3€ more I’d still have passed, and justifiably so, cheap-ass that I am)! Now I’m stuck! When I’m stuck I start looking for an exit, NOW. There’s a flight to Malta for $180 OW. That’s not a RyanAir price, but not THAT bad really, twice a week, next one Sunday, same day my hotel’s booked up to. I fuss and fume and walk the streets looking for inspiration… i.e. looking for Internet.

I’m cold, I’m stuck, and I’ve got no wi-fi, at least not at a reasonable price. To use a computer in my hotel room would cost the equivalent of certain sex acts in certain sectors (of the world, pervo, not your body), so I forego.

Many things are cheaper on the street than they are in your room of course, so that’s where I look for connections, all to no avail. If you think you’re going to cruise the Maghreb with your laptop, blogging up in your hotel and café hotspots, think again. They’re way behind. There are hardly any Internet cafes at all for that matter, though I finally found one, that’s only one, apparently a government-controlled ‘Publinet’, though at reasonable price. That doesn’t mean the next town down the road will be any better. I had really thought I might hang in Tunisia a while to practice my French, but the unavoidable conclusion to my dilemma is staring me right in the face with that silly stupid grin. I book the flight. I ran the scenario through my head a dozen different ways and it worked out the same- when stuck with your luck, tell it to go f***… I’d already tried to book a flight in the US in fact but it didn’t go through at a cheaper price. I’d even considered looking for an agent to book it for me, for a fee… I think that’s what I just did, same flight and all… yep, just like I planned, harrumph…

This trip doesn’t need to get stalled so early, so I’m good. I’m on a quest for 192 countries after all, and there’s another kink waiting right down the line at Malta. It’s an island, remember? That’s kinky by definition, and a flight from there to Athens is definitely ‘iffy’, though RyanAir had one to Brindisi, Italy, almost FREE… if I’m an EU citizen. Huh? From there’s a ferry to Greece, fairly frequent I think, at least better than Tunis. If I had to go back through Sicily to catch a boat to Malta, though, then go back overland AGAIN, I’d be really tempted to blow it off, and I don’t want to do that, or maybe I just don’t want to admit I made a mistake not booking the return ticket originally, which I only know because my brain is so full of sub-conscious feedback that I only research all my options AFTER I’ve made my decision, consciouness being the wretched curse that it is. The trip is back on course anyway, ahead of schedule actually, so maybe Istanbul’s back in the pic, or maybe farther south even, where it’s warmer. Bottom line is that Malta’s a world heritage site, and apparently cheap, so that’s good enough right there. LP’s website says Malta’s the old world, so don’t expect to book your room online, then the next page has more cheap hotels on offer than any country I’ve ever seen. Does one brain hemisphere communicate with the other at Lonely Planet? I know the feeling.

So I guess two short days will have to suffice for my Tunisian experience. Is that enough to ‘get it’? Yes… and no. I’ve eaten couscous with the Homies and gotten lost in the souk. Half the fun of coming to an Arab country is getting lost in the souk and seeing where it spits you out. It’s also half the frustration, the crush and crunch of bodies slipping and sliding against each other in some caricature of a pedestrian walkway. Don’t go if you’re claustrophobic. How anyone could actually shop in such conditions is beyond me. Of course there’s no shortage of plasticrap in the old medina along with the good traditional stuff that successful tourism brings. Am I regretful that the trip is getting cut short? For some reason, no, not really. I like kicking back, but I need good prices, good weather… and readily accessible Internet, preferably wi-fi. This is my life after all, not my vacation. One out of three isn’t good enough, though another season may present itself sometime. Food is certainly cheap enough, prices that almost make you cry, and it tastes good too, similar to that of Morocco. Espresso’s about 400 TND, about a $.25 George W (no, not THAT ‘W’). Those cheap hotels probably don’t have heat though, so that won’t work right now. What other down sides are there to Tunisia? Creeps follow me around, especially at night, up to no good I assume, though I try to avoid those conclusions. You’ve been here and never noticed that? If they’re good, you don’t. I don’t like it regardless. Bottom line- when in doubt, bail out. Malta sounds interesting enough in itself, firmly straddling Arabia and Europe like no other. Stay tuned. I can’t wait. I’ve already got a list of questions.

Will Malta be a dog country or a cat country? All across the Arab countries cats rule, taking over entire sections of cities with impunity, apparently a right they’ve earned since the era of the Sphinx. Of course this is only possible if dogs are controlled. Cats won’t get far in South America. All animals are controlled in modern countries of course. The irony is that the Arab countries are so male-dominated, and to me cats are analogous to femininity, and dogs masculine by analogy. Arab countries reek of testosterone, from the scads of males hanging out in cafes all day to the erect chiseled minarets that serve as symbols of Islam, a far cry from the fleshy rounded lobes that serve as the domes of Christianity, the final cross little more than a cherried nipple on top. In this view the entire Crusades would be little more the the banshee hysterics of a woman scorned, determined to get her room with a view down on the Mediterranean coast back. Or are the feminine cats psychological sex surrogates for the macho Muslims, and the masculine dogs likewise for the feminine Christians? I won’t go there.

Myself I can go both ways, dogs or cats that is, with equal affection. The Muslims DO seem to prefer their women, uh… plain. But all that testosterone is dangerous. If bottled up and concentrated and focused on a single objective, who knows what could happen? It could be the strongest weapon ever known. Worlds might change, wars might be fought, planes might crash into buildings, and men might kill themselves, willing to sacrifice all in a blaze of glory for the sake of faceless Gods and fuzzy futures… hey, wait a minute… Or are Arab cultures really the feminine ones, merely adopting masculine affectations as needed, and vice versa for the Christian cultures? The dialectic could get confusing with no clear answer, since religions frequently seem to dictate to a people what they need, not necessarily reflect what they are…

What were the other highlights of Tunisia? Well, they seem to have outdone the Italians’ combination toilet/bidets. Flexible hoses in Tunis bathrooms with a business end that looks similar to that of a Preparation H dispenser obviously have no other utilitarian purpose. But blood oranges are the big discovery. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat another orange that isn’t red, they’re that much better, sweet as a beet and almost as red on the inside. Try one; ask for ‘sanguinello’ if nothing else works. Somebody in Florida is missing the boat with this. What else? They have thirty dinar (from ‘denarius’, just like denaro and dinero) notes, and their change is divided into a thousand millimes instead of a hundred cents. I’ve got a nice big room and I’ve even got central heat. But I ain’t got Internet, and Tunisia is just not really working for me for some reason. Maybe it’s the weather, or maybe just the large ratio of tourists to locals, always a recipe for dissatisfaction for me. That’s the good part about the slow season, but maybe it’s not good enough. Next stop is Malta. Stay tuned.