Dachau

Today I left a stone on the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.

Visiting a concentration camp is a deeply personal and sobering experience that I recommend strongly to anyone that is interested.

You simply must see…

I have managed to see an uncountable number of remarkable and stunning things on my trip so far, but a few things that I keep coming back to have proven to be less than unique experiences. After plentiful benefits of plentiful doubts, there are still a few things that I find myself becoming disenchanted with:

• Belvederes
• Pretty facades
• Churches
• Statues
• Museums of Fine Arts
• Open air markets
• Clubs
• Sharing my life story every night
• Philosophical one-night stands
• Bread
• Cold weather

So as not to seem a generally unhappy person, there are also a number of things that continue to engage my interest:

• Local cuisine
• Local folklore
• House parties
• Napping in beautiful places
• Friends (old and new)

Fallas pt. 3

Danny and I went to the bullfight in the morning and got out just in time to see the final Mascleta. It was surprisingly similar to the previous mascletas… Since the celebrations were all drawing to a close, there were very few events going on before the big burning later that night. On our way to lunch, we passed the completed virgin, and finally found a place serving paella. It was quite good, and definitely worth the trouble. It was also, I believe, the first time I have ever eaten rabbit. Following lunch was an amazing dessert of Horchata (de chufa: a tiny tuber) and Fartons (croissant shaped glazed donuts). This trip has turned out to be quite the gastronomical adventure.

After many, many bouquets, the virgin's robe was completed

We grabbed our bags and thanked our hosts, and then headed to meet a CouchSurfer named Juan Carlos. He was the only one we contacted that had offered us a place, and was already sharing his two-room student housing with two other couchsurfers from Germany. He was a really cool guy: a mexican architecture student doing a 5-year degree in 4 countries. In his short time in Valencia, he had hosted some 45 CSers (40 of which were Polish!)

Can you tell which one is Juan Carlos?

We headed out around 10 to see the local childrens’ falla burn. Before the fire starts, all the falleras (the community’s representatives) get to choose some part of the statue that they want to keep as a souvenir. Then the entire structure is wrapped with fireworks and firecrackers and a long fuse is lit. In a quick series of flashes, booms, and pops, a cloud of black smoke encompasses the sculpture and the flames lick up the sides of the smiling cartoonish faces. Limbs start to fall off and bodies lose their integrity and angle out of the blaze. Some children start to cry, and others are distracted by candy being passed around. The whole thing was a puddle of smoldering goo within about 5 minutes, and we headed to the metro to go see the largest falla burn.

The kids all pose with the smaller falla before it is destroyed

Fallas pt. 2

Danny and I woke up late in the morning to the dulcet notes of our host’s violin. Rising from the bed, I found a breakfast of meats and cheeses arrayed in the kitchen. How nice it was to have more than eggs and potatoes for once!

We shuffled out the door, under the wing of our host and his son, on our way into the city center for a short walking tour. At the metro station I tried to buy tickets for all of us but was foiled when the ticket machine swallowed my only debit card! It kept insisting that I insert a card, and each time I pressed “cancel transaction” it would spit my card out an eighth of an inch and then suck it back in again. I had to try three times to grab it before I managed to wrench it from the machine’s hungry jaws. It was quite a scary experience, and so Danny ended up buying the passes with cash.

We made it to the Mascleta, but were so late that we couldn’t even push our way onto the street with a view of the fireworks! We listened at a distance then headed to the collosal arena by the train station to purchase tickets for a bullfight the next day! We got the cheapest seats we could: cement benches exposed to the elements at a good distance from the action. Our guides then brought us to the winning Falla in the Jerusalem Quarter.

The winning Falla

 

I can barely describe how huge, yet ornate and intricate the production was. I suppose pictures do a better job, but we learned a little about the themes in it from Jose. Illustrated in its sculptures are the four seasons and various satirical manifestations of heaven: including one joke about Michael Jackson being turned away from the pearly gates because the guest list has him down as being black.

Does it matter if you're black or white?

 

We then broke away from the Joses and did some CouchSearching for the next few nights, as our hosts couldn’t put us up for too long. On our own, we decided to do a little sight-seeing around town and made a number of stops at various architectural sites. This was not as easy as one might imagine, because the city was still enduring the constant stream of people through the parade to the virgin. We finally made it up a tower at the city entrance, and were afforded a beautiful view of the city in early evening.

This tower gaurded the northen entry into the city

 

As a reward to ourselves for a hard day’s trek, we decided to seek out a local paella for dinner. After wandering for over an hour and following several suggestions, we found out that paella is not a dinner food. Sorely disappointed, we ate at an Argentian Steakhouse with terrible service, high prices, and waiters that spill grease on your pants.

We headed back into the heart of the city for the largest fireworks show of the month: Nit du Foc (night of fire). It was an half hour of solid fireworks, and every street along the “rio” was packed to enjoy the spectacle. As soon as it ended, the whole place erupted into a warzone. Many people in the crowd had fireworks of their own, and started launching them in every direction. Groups started forming and firing them back and forth at each other while innocent bystanders ducked and jumped to dodge the missiles. Then came the police, and amid the deafening bangs and shrill screams and whistles they descended on the firework launchers. Mainly using their hands but not hesitating to weild their billy clubs, they dispersed the more dangerous groups and held a perimeter by standing in a ring facing outwards. The terrifying and epic battle hadn’t stopped before we slunk away to a better lit area.

Pretty lights

 

We found a dance party in some crowded party and danced for a few hours. Finally, making our way back at some absurd hour in the morning, we were amazed to find every street brimming with people. By all appearances, the city did not sleep.

Nothing in particular was happening in this plaza at 5 AM

Food, glorious food!

NOTE: This post belongs between the two Italian posts.

We searched for, but didn’t find cheap food. We followed a recommendation from another friend and wandered down alleys until we came upon what was supposed to be the tasty little hole-in-the-wall trattoria. It looked empty. We almost walked away, but we decided to go inside for just a second. The waiter led us deeper into the restaurant, which was filled with people wearing very nice clothing and speaking many different languages. We were struck by the realization that it might be a little pricier than first expected. We sat down, to find out what we had gotten ourselves into.

What followed was a 7 course meal including 3 antipasti, 2 primi piatti, 1 entree, and 1 dessert. I enjoyed every single bite starting with a whole plate full of prosciutto. Next was a sort of savory flan with creamy potato sauce, followed by a goat cheese with olive oil from a 200-year-old tree. Meanwhile the five of us were enjoying multiple bottles of a fine red wine. One of the primi was a risotto (famous in Milan), and the second was a selection of ravioli filled with pumpkin and spinach. For the main course, I chose thinly sliced beef (whose name eludes me) that had a sweet Champagne reduction drizzled on it. I asked for panna cotta for dessert, and by the end of our meal, we were the only ones still in the restaurant.

In the end, the damage was around 40 euro a person, which, considering the quantity, quality, and variety of food purchased, was not all in all a bad deal. Of course, I told myself that I deserved it (having not eaten much real food for the past three days) and that it was an important cultural experience for my last day in Italy. I very much enjoyed it. Damn, I’m getting hungry writing this…

Also, it turns out I am extremely uncreative when it comes to post titles: this is the second time I used this title!

The fanciest meal I've had in years

Jabber-what?

Happy Walpurgis Night everyone!

I hope to see a bonfire or two during this May Day celebration in Eastern and Northern Europe.

Zagreb

I have to say that I was fairly unprepared for Croatia, so I don’t think that my experience was the most authentic or engaging thanks to my own fault. I was surprised on the train to find out that it is not an EU country, and that I would need to use the Kuna instead of the euro while I was there. Arriving in the train station and walking out into an overcast Zagreb, my first impression was of decay (especially when compared to the pristine Ljubljana). The scaffolding on many of the larger buildings and general dirtiness of a few of the smaller crumbling buildings added to this perception, but the city was much more lively once I found my way into the center.

A large part of my time there was spent wandering: I had accidentally arrived on a Sunday, so absolutely everything was closed including museums, shops, and eateries. I walked to four different restaurants in my guide, and had no luck at each. Finally I found a little touristy place still open, and sat down for a nice bowl of beef, mushroom, and vegetable stew. After dinner I headed back to the station to nod off the few hours before my 5 AM train departure to Budapest.

I hear that Croatia is quite lovely, in particular the coastal regions, and I am eager to go back. Hopefully under better conditions I will get more out of some time there!

Hot-Horse

I arrived in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, midafternoon and had a few hours to kill before my couchsurfing host could meet me. I stepped off the bus into the central station and my head started to spin. Just a few hours before, I had finally been enjoying the comfort of understanding people and signs (in Italian), and now everywhere I turned there was nothing but nonsense written on every billboard. It literally looked as though someone had strung together random letters of roughly word length, and replaced everything with gobbledygook. Consonants were smashed together in unholy unions with no respect for vowels, and accents floated above, below, beside (thank you Mr. Pineda) at least half of the letters. Having never been so utterly out of my language league, my bewilderment verged on hysterics.

I began to understand what illiteracy feels like

I wandered into the center ville, following surprisingly loud traditional alpine music. When I found the source, I was not surprised to see an accordionist, keyboardist, and singers all dressed in knee-highs and vests dancing to a polka of sorts. Asking around, I found out it was Slovenia’s national spring-cleaning day, and the 8 hour concert was a celebration for everyone who helped out. I listened to a really cool percussion band called Stroj Machine and wandered through the fairy-tale quaintness of the city center. The buildings were straight out of the Sound of Music and the castle on the hill overlooked the sleepy-feeling capital.

Traditional music gets the blood flowing

I finally met my host and we headed out to a thai bar and then to a swing club to while the night away. The next morning she brought me back into the city to have some unique Slovenian cuisine. It started with a little streetside stall famous for serving only one item: hot horseburger. I indulged my curiosity and on a bun with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, and tomato, I had my first taste of horse meat. Needless to say, thinking about it too much made my stomach turn over, but if I didn’t pay attention it just tasted like a slightly gamey hamburger. For dessert we went to a touristy place where all the waiters dressed in national garb, and I had essentially a log of raw pastry dough wrapped around a sort of creamy cottage cheese. The sauce, however, was absolutely delicious: a local red-wine reduction turned syrupy with so much sugar. Heavenly. And it helped take my mind off the cheesey dough…

Hot-horse.

I then took my leave and jumped on an afternoon train for the Croatian capital of Zagreb. One last stop before Budapest!

Napkins

I absolutely detest Mexican napkins. Small squares of tissue paper that fall apart under their own weight when wet can hardly be considered useful when enjoying all the variety of fingerfood they have to offer. However, I am afraid to say that in the grand international ranking of paper napkins, Italy takes the cake for the worst. When chowing down on a delicious piece of greasy pizza, the only napkin offered is more like wax paper than anything else. Instead of cleaning your hands, it actually worsens the situation by slathering it all over and providing neat little valleys for the shirt-staining juices to run down. A true travesty, but it reminds me to be thankful that Mexican napkins at least have some sort of absorbant qualities.

Moving East

I met with an old friend of Toby’s: an expert in museum exhibit case design. Sandro sent a car to meet me, and he gave me a personal tour of his workshop. The work they do is like magic: enormous sheets of glass swing effortlessly open, seemingly weightless, to reveal air-tight mechanisms and environment-controlling devices. Like seamless pieces of art, they are beautiful themselves and virtually disappear when an object is placed inside.

After showing me around a little, we went out for lunch in a tiny restaurant where he had once treated Toby. We had a leisurely meal, chatting with owner, cook, and sole waitress, as well as the only other customer lingering after lunch. It was a pleasure to catch up after so many years, and I was able to share Toby’s final escapades around the world.

Later in the afternoon, we parted and I grabbed the next train headed east. The furthest I could get from Milan was Trieste on the Slovenian border, so I would have one last night in dear old Italy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any contacts or hostels or couchsurfers in that city, so I decided to have my first urban-camping experience.

I hiked around the city for a while, scouting for parks or well-protected spaces. Eventually I settled on a commercial mall’s entrance area that had wonderfully large but low-hanging bushes with little light. Sheltered from wind, sight, and the cool morning air, I crawled into my sleeping bag. I was up and out when the cleaners started to make their rounds.

I bought a bus ticket towards Budapest, but it only went as far as Slovenia’s capital: Ljubljana. I fell asleep in my seat and so began my first experience in eastern Europe.