Penguin Peep Show

This time, mostly because of flight availability, I decided to take a longer than usual weekend trip to the southern part of Croatia and the western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I have a Bosnian/Serbian friend in Bremen who was planning bringing his wife and coming with me, but he was forced to stay in Germany due to German visa issues. I think I would have really enjoyed their company because they would be able to answer my questions and maybe show me things I wouldn't normally see. Oh well. Such is German bureaucracy.

I started my trip from Zadar, Croatia and spent the first day hanging around and slowly getting to Plitvice Lakes National Park, which is the main place I wanted to go to. The park consists of a series of lakes which were all created by limestone deposits from the Korana river. This is a really special process where the river dissolves limestone from the surrounding rocks and deposits it pretty much everywhere. The result is that over the years the river has turned into about 100 small emerald green pools at different levels. Each lake flows into the next with a waterfall in between. It's like a water wonderland and like nothing I've ever seen before. It definitely makes my list of the most beautiful places in the world.

The next day and a half I spent driving through rural Bosnia. I saw a couple of little towns here and there and had the intention of renting a bike and riding through some of the area. However, with the combination of bad weather and not finding a bike rental place, I gave up on that idea and just took my time getting back to Croatia. But I didn't drive slow enough. It just started to rain (after not raining at all the previous month) and so the roads were more slick than normal. I was on a two lane mountain road going 80 km/h (the speed limit) when I suddenly came up to a speed limit sign that said 30 km/h followed soon afterwards by fairly sharp turn. I braked too quickly and lost traction before the turn even started, but I didn't regain traction until after I ran over the low stone barrier and plowed over one of those plastic reflector sticks. There was hardly any visible damage to the car, but I snapped one of the bars that connects the steering wheel to the right wheel and therefore could not control it. I was forced to stop and wave down some friendly locals who, with some pointing, charades and some basic German, were able to see the problem and call me a tow truck. Thank you very much! 5 hours later the car was fixed at the nearest town and I was happily on my way only 150 Euro poorer. I consider myself lucky and fortunate for the experience and that the car rental place didn't notice the scrapes on the wheel rim.

My last full day I spent in the historic town of Split. This is a nice little city where the ancient buildings are still being used as stores and apartments. It's a mix of the old and the new and was actually pretty interesting. While you're there, you might notice the pungent aroma of sulfur in the air and think someone needs to take out the garbage or something. Turns out that Split was built next to a natural spring of sulfur water. The smell is strongest near the ocean and left me wondering why someone would build a city there. I guess sulfur water has its uses, as the local sulfur spa will most likely tell you.

There was one major theme that I noticed while driving through the area for the past few days. Compared to most of the rest of Europe this place is really empty; meaning, outside of major cities there are hardly any houses and there are lots of fields and forests. Several times I would come up to a sign with the name of the next town, and find that there were only a handful of houses before the town was gone. In many cases half of the houses looked condemned or empty. From what my friend told me, I think at least part of the empty buildings are due to refugees of the Bosnian war not returning.

I've been traveling quite a lot for the past few months and I'm starting to miss hanging out in Bremen on the weekends and seeing my friends. It's a good thing I don't have anything else planned for a while.

For the past month I've been pretty busy. I have been using weekends wisely and have made several short trips to Amsterdam, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and Bratislava.

I was in a small town near Munich for work. I go there a few times a year actually. But this was the first time besides Oktoberfest when I actually had enough time to see the city. That being said, I was only there for a few hours. I walked around a bit, saw the glockenspiel, and ate a pork sandwich. Nowadays I really struggle to find interesting things to see in all these European cities. I usually don't go to any museums or monuments anymore unless I happen to stumble upon something good or it's really famous. It's not that I don't like these things. It's just that usually, after I go home and return to my life, these are not the things I remember; these are not the places that stay in my mind or the experiences that change me. Instead, I try to search for the more interesting things. So what I did find worthwhile in Munich was the permanent wave in the Eisbach river and the group of surfers that ride it. The wave is manmade and I guess is formed by other water coming from an underground tunnel. The surfers are a group of locals who all seem to know each other and always have a crowd watching them. I only watched for 20 minutes, but this is what I will remember most from this city.

The next few days I traveled around Salzburg, Austria. The first day I spent hiking in Berchtesgaden National Park in Germany, and marveled at how much gear people think is necessary to bring in order to hike halfway up (people usually take the gondola up the first half) and all the way down a small mountain. Most groups had a full large day pack and two trekking poles per person. It's good to be prepared and all, but you don't need this much stuff for a 6 hour hike in a well populated area. This goes with my personal stereotype that most Germans are overly prepared and like having and using a different tool for all occasions. The last day near Salzburg I went to Eisriesenwelt, the largest ice cave in the world. An ice cave is any cave with significant amounts of ice year round. The tour for this cave starts at 1641 meters up the mountain and goes through the first 1 kilometer of the cave. Inside is a world of natural ice formations which are constantly changing as new water leaks through the walls. I've been in lots of caves before and this one was the best and most unique. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed, but go here to see the majesty.

On another trip I went to Vienna, Austria with Stefanie and some of her friends. We spent most of the time in cafes and museums. I tried the wiener schnitzel, which supposedly comes from Vienna (spelled Wien in German), and lots of other regional foods, but nothing really stuck out as being exceptionally good. It's a bit sad, but I can't really think of anything really noteworthy about the city. It's nice, very historical, plenty of things to see, but I never found anything really original or exciting. While I was there, I did take a day trip over to Bratislava, Slovakia by myself, and I actually found it more interesting than nearby Vienna. To me it looked like an East European town with Mediterranean and West European influences and remnants of the Soviet era. It's a relatively quiet small town with not too many tourists. I liked walking around and even popped my head into two different church services to check things out.

All in all I consider Austria as Germany's less popular but very similar cousin. Other than a different accent, I didn't find too many real differences between the two. I had a good time, but I was disappointed that I never heard anyone talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

My friend Shelley and my aunt Caroline both went to Amsterdam in the last two weeks, which is coincidentally fairly close to where I live. So I decided to meet up with each of them. In truth, I probably would have met up with them whereever they went. But Amsterdam is nice too. I'm glad I went, both times. I haven't seen Shelley in 4 years or so, and I always like hanging out with my aunt.

Stefanie and I drove there as a day trip to see Shelley. 3.5 hours each way, not so bad. We mostly just hung out and sat in cafes. But there were some notable experiences. I learned all about cannibus at the marajuana museum, we ate these delicious deep fried gravy balls (don't knock it until you've tried it), and we took in some of the local street entertainment (see picture to the right). This guy was awesome on so many levels. The man himself seems fairly old for doing this, and seems like there might be a screw loose as well, but this just makes the show that much better. His first act is to trip down to that thong he's wearing. He does a little dancing around to his music, then he climbs the rope and does several corde lisse tricks holding certain positions. Finally, he walks around with a tray asking for money, still in his thong. You don't usually find something this unique very often. Some people say that it's a bit disturbing and you don't want to see it, but then they can't take their eyes away from him. I, sir, applaud you.

I took the train to see my aunt and stayed overnight. I dropped my bag off at my hostel and then went to the meeting point I scheduled with my aunt. I was a little late, so I was surprised when I didn't see her there. It's not like my aunt to be late for something like this, but I waited around a bit more before I accecpted the fact that she stood me up. I finally found her 5 hours after we were supposed to meet. She thought we were meeting on the following day. I told her about the old guy doing rope tricks and she was totally into it. It's too bad that we never got to see his show. Apparently he doesn't keep to a schedule. Instead, we went to a few historical sights and took a nice informal boat tour with the St. Nicolaas boat club, where we saw the smallest house in Amsterdam and maybe got in one of the Google street view pictures when the car went by. I'm still looking for the street view picture.

Other than that I didn't really learn much more about the Netherlands, other than the fact that Holland is only a small part of the Netherlands. Eventhough the Dutch guy at work always says Holland when he reffers to the whole country.

In other news, I also went to Salzburg, Austria last weekend, but I will save the details until after my trip to Vienna in two weeks. Then I will have more insights on Austria. The next trip after that is a joint trip to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.