So obviously I’m back. And have been for a little over a week. Seeing as it’s a rainy Sunday night and I’m debating whether or not to go out, I have a few extra minutes to tell some travel stories. And illustrate them with links to pictures (for my favorite summer pictures, see here).
I started out in Istanbul, where I stayed for five days with my friend Eva. We took the train from Greece, which was… not so fun. It was about 95 degrees inside of our sleeper car, and there was no AC, so we opened the window — and trains, for those who are unfamiliar, are quite loud. Sleeping with an open window isn’t the greatest experience. Not that it mattered, since the conductors came around every hour to collect and hand back our passports half a dozen times. The first time they knocked on our door it was 1am, and as I was scrambling out of bed, I slammed my knee against the metal ladder we used to climb into our bunks — splitting my knee open so badly that I probably needed stiches, and leaving me with blood running all over my leg for the rest of the night. My white sheets were covered in blood, and it looked like someone was massacred on my bed. Now it’s just a schweet pink scar.
But we eventually arrived, tired and bloodied. Istanbul a beautiful city, and a nice introduction to the Middle East — not as overwhelming as I imagine a lot of places would be, but still different enough to feel like you’re not in Europe anymore. On our first day we checked out the major tourist sites, the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia, which are gorgeous. We took an evening cruise around the Bosphorus, ate lots of amazing Turkish food, smoked some nargileh (flavored Turkish tobacco), visited lots and lots of mosques, checked out Topkapi Palace, drank Turkish coffee, ate Turkish delight, bathed in a Turkish bath, did some serious shopping (bought some birthday presents for myself), and generally just had a fabulous time.
From there, I went to Belgrade, and then to Sarajevo, Zagreb (Croatia), Dubrovnik, Skopje (Macedonia) and back to Athens. The only city I didn’t like was Skopje, although I had a fairly interesting day there anyway, as I ended up meeting two American men (probably in their 30s) at a restaurant who work for KFOR, the Kosovo police. They had some really crazy stories. One was from Texas and the other was from Colorado, and they were real characters. Really nice guys, and had travelled all over Eastern Europe. And they were even nice enough to pay my dinner bill for me (thanks, Kevin and James!).
Belgrade was very cool. A fun city, with really great architecture. I ended up meeting some of my Serbian family who have been in contact with my grandma, but who no one has actually met in person. No one in my family has been back to Serbia since my grandpa left, so that was really interesting. Got to hear some old family stories, and saw pictures from the early 20th century of my grandpa’s brother and his family in traditional Serbian garb. I also celebrated my 23rd birthday in Serbia, which was fantastic, as the Belgrade nightlife is something else. All the clubs are on the water, and there’s one in the Kalemegdon (castle). Overall, a very memorable birthday. I was tempted to stay longer, but had to go on.
Sarajevo was next on the list, and is unbelievably beautiful. I had no idea it was so gorgeous. Bosnia is really green, and Sarajevo is situated in the basin of all these hills, with white red-roofed houses all around it, lots of mosques, and Turkish-influenced cobblestone streets with lots of little shops. It was a very pleasant surprise, and my pictures do not nearly do it justice.
Zagreb was also nice, and Dubrovnik was as amazing as everyone says. I even ran into some NYU Law students there, oddly — I didn’t know them, but they recognized me. The city was absolutely beautiful. My flight from Zagreb was delayed by five hours, so I ended up showing up at the Dubrovnik airport at 2am with nowhere to stay. And the airport is tiny — there are no benches to sleep on, so staying there wasn’t an option. I tried to plan a place to stay beforehand, but that’s not how it works in Croatia if you’re travelling alone — basically, you’re supposed to show up, and there are little old ladies who rent out a room in their house for you to stay in. But there were no little old ladies around at 3am. Luckily, I met some Australian girls my age, and they were getting picked up by an apartment-owner, and that guy told them that their room had an extra couch. So I ended up crashing on their couch for the next two nights (it was a very comfortable couch).
Dubrovnik is very touristy, but gorgeous.
It was a little overcast when I was there, which was disappointing, but still very beautiful. You can walk along the walls of the Old Town and look over the entire city, which is quite the visual experience.
I got out to one of the islands, Mljet, which is about 2 hours from the coast, and is a national park. It was really something else. The whole island is forested, and the trees go right down to the water. It’s gorgeous.
From Dubrovnik, I went to Skopje (Macedonia), which is honestly kind of a shithole. But I was only there for a day, and at least it’s a cheap shithole, so I had some good meals for like $3. And they have a really cool art museum housed in a former Turkish bath, so I spent a good hour in there checking out all these Yugoslavian artists I hadn’t ever heard of. And it’s not actually so much of a shithole — I was just exhausted, cranky, had been on a bus for 11 hours the night before, and wanted a little physical beauty. Skopje doesn’t have so much of that, but it is an interesting city.
But my best story was on the way to Skopje. I took a bus from Dubrovnik, which left at 6pm and was supposed to take about 11 hours. So I took the very back seat so that I could stetch out and sleep, and I passed out around 10. On the first day of travelling to Turkey I learned that “sleeping” on trains and buses just doesn’t happen — you’re constantly woken up at various borders (first from the country you’re leaving, then again from the country you’re entering) to collect your passport, give it back, collect it again, etc. They had already done passport control at the Montenegran border, and so I was trying to get some rest. At 3am I was woken up again, and assumed that we had hit Macedonia. I was the only American on the bus — everyone else was from former Yugoslavian nations. The official walks on the bus, and checks everyone’s passports, glancing at the picture page and then handing them back. Then he gets to me, the very last person. He looks at my passport and says, “Filipovic?” I nod. Then he flips through it, doesn’t find what he’s looking for, and flips through it again. He says something in Serbian that I don’t understand, but it ends with “…visa?” Shit. I decide to play dumb, and say, “I don’t understand. English?” “Visa,” he says, “You need a visa.” I just look at him blankly, because I definitely don’t have a visa, and I checked the State Department website before leaving and it said that I didn’t need one. So I say, “Athina, I’m going to Athina. I’m not staying here. I go straight to Athina.” “Athina?” he repeats. “Yes, Athina. Straight to the train station, and the train to Athina.” He’s thinking. And, lucky for me, he finally hands me my passport back and lets the bus through. I’m not sure if it was because of the Yugoslavian last name (which seemed to excite every Yugoslavian person who looked at my passport, from hotel owners to the guy at the left-luggage counter in the bus station) or because I’m clearly not all that threatening as a small female American or because he simply didn’t want to be stuck with a stranded backpacker at 3 in the morning (I’m guessing that was the primary reason), but thank god for small blessings like that one.
I go back to sleep, and two hours later — when it’s light out — we come to another border where there are blue UN signs everywhere, and I realize that we weren’t in Macedonia yet. We were in Kosovo, which is why I needed a visa. And, as I have a Serbian last name, the UN official probably didn’t want to leave me unguarded in a place where Serbs live in UN-protected ghettos, and where Serbs aren’t the most popular people in the world. Of course, they don’t tell you that you’ll be driving through a still-unstable UN protectorate when you buy your bus ticket, but at least it all worked out.
I finally got back to Greece after a very long stint of travelling — my train from Skopje to Thessaloniki (in Northern Greece, and the only connection to Athens) was delayed by three hours, so I ended up taking the 1:30am train into Athens, and arrived at 6:30 in the morning. I had planned to stay with my friend Eva (the Italian girl I went to Turkey with), so I tried to send her a text message letting her know that I was on my way to her flat. No luck. I ended up at her front door at 8am on a Sunday, woke her up, and we both promptly fell back asleep until 1 in the afternoon. Then we headed to the beach, and I started to recover the tan that I lost while travelling (Croatia is on the coast, but it was overcast almost the whole time I was there). Greece was hot and sunny as usual, and it was nice to be back. I spent my last two days on the beach with my Italian friends, and then completed the long journey through Zurich to New York.
And now I’m here, and getting ready to start school in two days. I miss Greece already.