The Plan. Also, Shop Vendors.

We've met a lot of tourists. A lot of locals too, and a lot of tourists that are local to a very exotic location, so, what the hell, they are local to us. But, in general, staying in hostels, you meet a lot of tourists.

When the time comes in the conversation to trade travel plans with our fellow travellers, I am always elated to discover that other travellers with more set plans are jealous of us. They would love to head out into the great blue yonder, they say, but ya'know, we have a hotel booked in Thessaloniki and we have to be there.

Today, Spence and I are discovering the other half of our style of travel. Lets call this half "Confusawildered."

We have literally dozens of options in front of us, all with pros and cons, risks and rewards, one adjective and its opposite. But within these dozens of options there are two main paths: West and North. In the western path, there is Italy and the Aidriatic. We could take a boat to Italy, but it is a long time traveling and expensive. We could take a plane, but it is expensive with x-ray/heat vision, flight, and immense strength. Er, super expensive. Also, we didn't come here to fly around! I want my bike, damnit. I want to ask some farming family if I might, please sleep on their land, and then be invited in for a delicious local meal and the game of charades that is conversation with little lingual common ground. You don't get that by flying.

The other path, that which we are favoring now, is North. Croatia is the prize here, with Dubrovnik's high walls, Split and a week of free rooming with Spencer's friend, and sweet sweet favorable-currency-exchange. Croatia is not yet on the euro, and their currency is worth less than the USD. We plan to purchase bikes in Croatia with these favorable rates, and then take a boat with them to Italy where we will bike up the calf of the boot and into Austria, where our new friends Thomas and Tobias have promised us a place to stay. Buuutt Albania. Allllbania. Al-fricking-bania.

Read about Albania. Read about travel in Albania. People say the same thing. They use the same descriptors. Descriptors like poor. Dirty. Hovel. Smell. Hole. When they talk about crime, they say "organized." When they talk about tap water, they follow it with "potentially lethal." This is a little discouraging. Whenever one of these so called negatives is said, one part of me, the part that likes video games, staying in bed until 11, shade, cake, kitties, laying down, calling in sick to work, being sleepy, watching other people do things, weddings, and closing my eyes; that part of me gets physically ill. He has to go to the bathroom and breath really hard and wish he could throw up but not quite manage it.

The OTHER part of me, that likes horizons, high skirts, long bike rides up big hills, discordant music, adventure novels, looking over the edges of cliffs, high skirts, fighting, getting drunk, spitting, high skirts, and doing things I know are stupid but I hope will be momentarily very fun; that part of me wants a brochure. You say "watch your pocketbook" and he says "which way to dodge." He wants to hear all about Albania and its people and the kind of food they eat and how they live and what idioms they use and how high their girls wears their skirts.

The catch is, you see, that while Greece and Croatia are fairly close, it is impossible to get directly from one place to another over land. There are no trains that go straight there. Buses only make layovers. The intervening countries, Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia. At least two of these countries must be crossed and interacted with, at least a little, to get from Athens to Croatia. Croatia, where are future lies.

So, after I get done with this entry, we are going across the street from our lovely hostel, have I mentioned how wonderful it is, to one of the many private bus companies promising cheap fares to Tirana, and we're probably going to get it. When we hand over our 25 euroes, you might feel a little breeze on your neck. That's the wind that we've decided to cast our fortunes too.

A note about the pictures, and about shop vendors. The first pic is posed next to the guard in front of the Grecian parliment. They change this guard in the same way the Brits do. And their guards also pretend to be statues. It is a perplexing ritual to me. Tourists flock around them, ogle them, bring their snotty little children to hang onto their decorative pants. I do not see the point at which the "dignity of the state" enters the picture. They also patrol, I think between the guards also patrol from the parliment to the royal palace, which sadly we did not but from afar see. The second picture is me below Hadrian's Arch, right outside the deliciously ruinous (I love all things crumbling) temple of Athenian Zeus. Spence says this pic is wallpaper worthy, which is the highest praise I know him to give of a picture. As for shop vendors; The waiters of restruants and tenders of shops in Athens will be invariably called one of two things by American tourists: Friendly or pushy. I find them friendly. I love talking to them, how they put their hand on your back and guide you to the menu, promising the lowest prices and best food even though you both know it will be much the same as the next place over. I love how sometimes they ask you where you are from, and introduce themselves, and then you tell them your name too and shake their hands. They love to talk and touch. They hover by you and hang on your every need. Until, at restruants at least, you sit. After they have you they promptly forget about you. They pause long enough to take your order and are gone. Some might consider this way of things to be insincere. I do not see it so.

Still though, as much as I like it, most of the tourists I meet hate the crap out of it. Spencer does, as does our new friend Sara from California. I can see how having someone hover next to you as you paw their things to be... unsettling.

C'est la vie. Er... I mean, french people hate freedom, and are cowards, and the US is great, and I love high skirts. I mean hate french people.

Ancient shit...

Well we made it to Greece. Got off the plane at around ten and took the bus into town. this morning we walked around to find a place to eat some breakfast and just wonder. I remember people telling me that Greece is really polluted and smoggy. It is but it has character at the same time. Due to the small cluttered shops, beautiful monuments and what not. On the walk we came across lots of abandoned houses, like old (once) nice buildings boarded up and full of shit i.e. torn apart cars, poo, bags upon bags of garbage etc in the middle of the city. Crossing the street is a risk with scooters and motorcycles speeding down the center line and in between lanes of traffic wasn't something i was thinking to see. after lunch we made are way meandering through the junk shop/streetfair kinda thing to the Accorpolis which was amazing. We saw lots of ancient shit. At the top they where doing lots of renovations due to bad renovations around 1920's-30. as you can probly tell from the pictures. On top they had a museum where they had salveged reliefs and statues. Some of the statues even had little traces of orignal paint on them, as you can see in the pictures. which blew my mind that art like that has survived. Other than that i have been taking it easy in the hostle, sweat glazed. its hot but not bad probly 75-80s but now Zeus just cracked the sky open and its like a torrental downpoor.

ps. here is my flicker account to check out the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13807404@N00/


mama, i think you would like Ireland, the people have a good sence of humor.

papa, iam taking more pictures of wierd cars that will fit on the camera. i miss you guys.

ellie and russ, hows it going? i got you something.

the kappels, any baby yet?

i miss all you guys and will email people individually if i ever get back on this one computer in greece.
-Spencer

In Athens, we were attacked by a lion

A view of the city just below the acropolis. The lion was huge. I almost died. Also, I think this pic of Spence, below the Wellington monument in Pheonix Park, in Dublin, is cool.

More soon.

.

People

About five years ago, I used to really like Plot. Plot and setting. Those were the two big things that made up a story, and everything else was of secondary consideration. Its a philosophy that I think drives the Japanese RPG industry.
Lately, I've turned more towards characters. The people that make up the stories are what I'm interested in. This trend had been occuring for awhile, but really settled when I read the Game of Thrones series.
People. People people people. When this trip terrifies me, and it still sometimes does between expanses of giddy excitement and awed contentment, most of that terror comes from the worry that I will not meet anyone. That I will "pass through" Europe, eating, sleeping, seeing, and talking only when I need to find places to eat and sleep.
I had visions, before I left, of meeting a group of youngish people in a hostel, people from everywhere. People whose english was often not so good. We would meet at a table, perhaps because they asked me directions, or I them, and a conversation would spark. They, or I, would introduce some other new friends that we had made, and suddenly we would be a small party. After a night fantastic night upon, we would awake the next morning and passionately decide to travel together.
It would not need to happen so quickly or concretely as that to please me.
We met two Austrian teenagers last night who were in Dublin on a whim, looking for work. Then we met an Australian who was, like us, traveling for traveling's sake. He had already been to India and Cairo, and was headed for Germany for music festival's which, dissapointingly, have almost exclusively American musicians.
To my elation, I discovered that it is nearly impossible to be from wildly disparate nations and have nothing to talk about. There is ALWAYS something. Comparison alone is a topic which can stretch endlessly, an air-conditioned and fortified fort from which forays into other topics may be launched. There are so many tiny differences that are both interesting and suprising between EU and US countries that one, I think could talk forever about them. When you throw Australia into the mix, you are gazing into conversational infinity.
Take, for example, the seemingly inocuous culture of going into a male bathroom. One would assume (at least I did) that such a thing was rather the same the world over, as long as the facilities were similiar. I imagine the communal muddy hole in the ground has a different etiquette behind it than the classic American throne, for example. But overall, the same.
Our Austrlian friend Mark apparently gets into a lot of trouble abroad because, in Australia, it is not only accepted but expected to look over to your urinal neighbor (though apparently they have more troughs than urinals) and have a polite chat.
It was comforting to know that girls still go to the bathroom, in all cultures we collectively had experience with, in gaggles.
It is 9:00 in the morning here, and we are about to catch a bus to Dublin airport and then fly to Athens. I am a little worried about how different it will be, especially since English in not as common a language there. I dearly hope that I will be greeted by a phalanx of spearmen, one of whom will hand me a red cloak and V shield in much the same way they hand out leighs(sp? that looks to Gaelic) in Hawaii. Perhaps they will have to fight a cyclops, which I have heard are a big problem down there.
I don't know what our net situation will be in Athens. In Dublin it was hard not to be on the internet. It was literally advertised on the street. The irish would get into drunken fights about the superiority and inferiority of different email accounts (there was actually a lot of fighting when we were here. At least two occured outside our windows while we tried to sleep. The combatants were mostly girls). If Athens proves different, it may be a while before we post again.
I have included a picture of me doing something I commonly do. It was taken on one of the main commercial areas in Dublin. Is there no land on Earth where good spelling and grammar are on the forefront of people's minds? A Literariland? I hope that this picture arouses pleasant, or at least accurate, recollections of me. We will have more later, I promise.

-Rhys

I hope there is not really a thing called Blue-Thooth.

Logistics, Finances, and Pornography

As of the second of June, we are in Dublin, and approximately $72 over our $50 a day budget. We are learning a great deal. If the title hadn't suggested it to you, this entry will be focused more on the physical details of our trip.
Its been pointed out to me, and I have considered it before, though not enough I think now, that Spencer and I are doing something not commonly done. This may be why there was little "how to" information in the guidebooks we looked at that pertained to our style of travel, which I'm not sure has an official title. Wandering? Errancy(hood?)? Vagrancy? Itinerant. But then, so is most travel, isn't? Er, innit?
As there was little information to go with, we are employing an ancient, coverall lifestyle technique called Making It Up As We Go Along. I am pragmatically interested in the process that will by necesity arise from this practice, but I am also generally interested. It is my hope that you will be too.
This is how our errant method of travel theoretically works at this point in time. Spencer and I wish to stay in a particular city for a certain period of time. We go online at any of the many very reasonably priced internet cafes, which are generally hip/trendy places, look on any of the many hostel booking sites (hostelworld.com is our MVP so far), look for the cheapest and coolestly(3rd made up word in the blog so far?) situated, and then, if it is available, book it for the number of night we need it for.
HOWEVER! If we decide to stay longer, or shorter, in a city, then hostels need to be quickly booked, which neccesitates a hostel crawl. Hostels are generally, so far, located in the same area. A hostelville of sorts exists in at least Dublin, be we are hoping that hostels in most cities conglomerate in one area. We are overbudget mostly because we're doing a lot of automated travel in a short amount of time, and also because the pound £ was really confusing at first. The meal we bought looked so reasonable in pounds. In USD it is very unreasonable. The hostel was also a little more expensive than normal ones.
A note about hostels -
1. They cost anywhere from €10 to €30 euroes a night (Spencer and I just spent a minute finding how to use the euro key "€." It shares the number 4 with the dollar sign "$" and is accessed by pressing a button labled "Alt Gr." The Great Alternate?)
2. They vary widely in style, use, luxury, and... some other adjectives. I get the impression that there is a healthy competition between hostels. The first one we stayed at was very very nice. Like I mentioned, almost like a college dorm. The one we're staying at tonight is also very expensive, and also very nice. However, we are in "dorm rooms" not private suites, so we will be sleeping with strangers.
3. They fill up really fast when you aren't looking.

The hostel we have booked tommorow is costing us . The hostel we have booked in Athens is €12 a night. We're eating stuff we've bought at the grocery store, and not out, which drops our prices significantly, but I'm still worried about the budget. We're hoping that our expenses will drop significantly when we start biking/camping in about 1 week. Thats when the real test of this trip is going to start.
Anyway, this is a lot of the stuff about logistics and finances. Theoretically, shelter will cost us about $20-$30 a day, and food, via grocery shopping, will cost us hopefully about $10. Then travel will cost us more at some times and nothing others, if the bike thing works. Then, when we can camp, shelter will often, theoretically, cost us little to nothing. Keep in mind that I am pulling out the collar of my shirt humorously, like a cartoon character, when I say this.

That is logistics. I will write more about Dublin tommorow. I have a lot to say about it, and how everything is going.

- Rhys

PS Pornography is strange here. It is so easily accesible in shops that a small child could reach it. Yet, its cover's promise much less, in terms of adult situations, than America porn. So, to be analagous, the fruit is lower but a lot less... smutty. Smutty fruit. Yeah. There are more coverspace devoted to promising articles and literary content.

My first post

I don't know... at first I was pretty ambiguous about this whole thing. It was what I always wanted to do, yeah, not necesarilly Europe but a big... a big Thing. An It, and I would remeber It for years to come. It was about having a big memory.
But I was pretty ambiguous about it. Even after I got the ticket (four months ago? Five?) I got a small excited feeling but even then. Not a big deal. Then about two week before it was time to leave I got scared. Like, dead scared. Very nervous. So much to be done. So much could go wrong. Or, even worse, nothing could go very right. It could be ho-hum. When you embark on a trip like this ho-hum is even worse than thunderous disaster. At least with @I got mauled by a bear who pushed my bike off a cliff and then the bike was broken and this beautiful girl helped me out but she turned out to be a banshee, or bainsidhe or however the hell they spell it here and ate fucking ATE both my eyes and also Spencer and now I'm blind, oh and also somebody stole my debit card and emptied my account mom please send money so I can come home and also a guide dog because I'm blind now and deaf that's another story (ad nauseum)...@, at least with that, with THAT you've got a story to tell. But if you just bike around and nothing happens, and you get home and your friends and family and enemies come up to you and say @Well?!@ and you just sort of shrug.
Well that's much much worse.
Incidentally, all the keyboards in Europe seem to have the quotation mark key switched with the @ symbol, which is very annoying. I'm leaving the quotations as @ for this email because I find it funny. I now feel much sympathy for Sarah, whose keyboard in Morocco must be an indecipherable labyrinth of strange arcane symbols. Though it does make her emails funny to read (@How's Eurpoe@ indeed.)
So I was on the plane from Newark, slightly happy to be getting the annoying plane ride part done, but still scared that everything would be rather ho-hum. I had recently traveled to Newark, and have traveled elsewhere in the States, and was always dissapointed by how SAME everything is. I always expect to get off the plane in Newark or Pennsylvania or India and breath a different air and have strange blue or purple skinned people greet me with strange and ultimately very attractive accents to their flawless english, which hints at the bilinguality (its a real word now!) of another, mysterious tongue of which I have never heard.
But its always just a fat guy offering me another cheeseburger.
Well...
In all fairness, the dissapointing SAME of my last travelscapade probably lowered my standards. But getting off the plane in Dublin, which from the air I could already see was a different kettle of fish, as I have seen written here on no less than three occasions already and its only the 1st day, I must happily inform everyone that it is wonderfully DIFFERENT. At least insofar as human beings and the things they build around themselves can be different from one another. Everyone speaks with a lovely if very hard to understand accent. I am actually expecting it to be easier to understand people in Greece. We will simply talk for two moments, then realize that we don't understand one another at all, and that will be our understanding. Here, we both jabber at each other for awhile, fully aware we both speak the same language, and terribly unhappy that, despite that, very little shit is sticking to the opposing wall.
But then, understanding really (and I don't speak for Spence here) not the purpose of this whole thing. Rather the opposite, I think. I like to think of that Weezer song Holiday, the line that says @they don't speak a word of truth, but we don't understand anyway@. We may not get a damn thing anyone is saying to us the whole time, but that someone is attempting to communicate in an utterly foreign tongue, which has behind it a body that has been fed and raised on a different... place, is tantalizing and very worth every bit of trouble. This is a frontier. Maybe not for the world. People have been here before.
I've never been here before.

-Rhys

PS - Oh yeah! Basics. Its a @log@ after all. We are in Belfast today, as of the 1st of June. Our plan is to eschew our second night of reservation here in Belfast and head immediately to Dublin to spend until the fifth, when another plane will take us to Athens. The Belfast Hostel is small and cramped and we love it to death. It reminds me a lot of college.

We guess were ready...

As of 8:40 AM tomorrow we will be in the air heading tward ireland that will strategically drop us in the outskirts of belfast. I cant tell you much more about the mission, due to its importance. So see everyone in a few months. "Spencer Bowman & Rhys Walters Will Return". Check back for more info in this blog on later dates. Over and out.


-Spencer