Day 330: Romania is a Wrap

On Friday I finished my second (and last) English teaching placement in Romania. We had a party, handed our certificates, and had a celebratory water fight... and then it was over. A few hugs, some thank you's, and I said goodbye-- perhaps forever-- to the group or students and volunteers who have filled my life for the past few weeks.

(Edumax, the first school I taught at)

It's a bit cliche, but it hasn't sunk in yet that I'm done. I've gotten so used to waking up at 7 every morning to plan lessons, to walking into the staff lounge and greeting the other volunteers, and to teasing Georgiana (my hostess/student). I'm pretty used to life in Suceava, and, despite it not being the most interesting city on the planet, I have enjoyed living here. 

(Photoshoot by an abandoned barn)

It's been a great month. Teaching certainly hasn't been without its challenges, and neither has been adjusting to such a different culture, but on the whole it's been really rewarding and a lot of fun. 

Before I came, last year's volunteers told me that Romanians were really friendly-- that's certainly proved true. I've loved spending time with my host families and the Romanian volunteers at the school. Together, we've explored Suceava, climbed a mountain, and spent countless hours chatting in pubs. 

(The top of mount Ceahlau, 1800m up!)

I can't say I'll be sad to get back to Britain in a week. As much as I'll miss the beautiful countryside and the friendly people and the great restaurants, I'm looking forward to getting back to a familiar language and a shared heritage and cleaner public places. At the risk of sounding horrendously snobby, I will be happy to return to a higher-income country, leaving the cracked pavement and the stray dogs far behind. 

But before Britain, Italy! On the 29th I fly out to Italy, where I'll spend a week visiting Rome, Naples, Florence, Pisa, and Venice. It's going to be a whirl-wind tour, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. 

(A monastery)

Just one more month travelling Europe. Three new countries left, bringing my total for this year to 20. Being on the road again will be tiring, but there is just so much more to see and do. I'm gonna make the most of this year. 

Romania, farewell. I couldn't live here-- I'm definitely too accustomed to my western standard of living. But even if Romania isn't as comfortable as the West, there's something more real here, a genuine vibrancy and warmth that made my stay so memorable. Hopefully I'll return some day. But even if I don't, Romania will always be part of me. 

Days 298-301: Cluj

It's been a whirlwind few days. The weekend in Cluj was one of the weirdest and most wonderful experiences of my life. Weird, because a year ago I never would have imagined I'd be spending a weekend in Romania with a group of students from around the world. Wonderful, because the experience of doing something so out of the ordinary gave me a real sense of freedom and the joy of simply existing.

Rather than wax awkwardly philosophical on the benefits of travel, I'll give you some more concrete observations about Romania, since the average western reader likely won't know much about this country. 

While it's not a rich country, Romania is actually known as a medium-high income country on a global scale, meaning that the quality of living isn't all that different from what we'd experience in the west. While shops and restaurants are generally cheaper, many of the same items and brand names are available. My western clothing doesn't look out of place and neither does my iPad. (Also, I must say, my host family's house in Suceava is way nicer than mine in either Canada or Scotland, so I by no means want to give the impression that all Romanians are poor, because the flat screen tv in my guest room definitely says otherwise...)

At the same time, it's still obvious the country isn't rich. The sidewalk is often cracked and the roads are potholed. Many of the buildings are covered in graffiti and need a new coats of paint. There's a fair bit of litter, and smoking is extremely common. Most of the nicer houses are surrounded by metal fences and electric gates. 

On Saturday afternoon, we visited a church near our hostel and chatted with the caretaker for a minute. We asked him if he had ever been to Scotland, and he just sort of laughed and said it was far too much money. This really changed my perspective-- to have a middle aged man admit that he couldn't afford to pay for the flight which I thought was so cheap. To say that he didn't have enough money to stay in Scotland, when I managed to pay rent for a year in one of Scotland's most expensive towns. That an established adult had less disposable income than I do. 

Because of the income difference, our weekend in Cluj felt like living like royalty. We could afford to eat out multiple times a day at the best restaurants in town while paying less than we would at a fish and chips place in the UK. We could buy earrings at the midsummer market or pretzels from the streetside stand, because even 10 Lei was still pocket change to us. 

It was so amazingly freeing and fun... and yet, somewhat unsettling. I've never been so comparatively rich, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with the feeling.

And I said I wouldn't wax philosophical in this blog post. Whoops!

Day 298: Romania!

I have arrived in Romania. I may be a little bit tired and hungry and more than a little bit in need of a shower, but I have safely arrived in the formerly communist country that will be my home for the next month. 

It's been a pretty long road getting here. I left before 8am yesterday, catching a bus from St. Andrews to Dundee, then the megabus down to London. Because of delays, we didn't reach London until 9:30 pm, meaning I didn't get settled into my hostel until past 10:30. That wouldn't have been an issue, except that I had to wake up at 4:30am in order to catch the bus to London Luton airport in time to make my 8:30 flight. Things were a tad hectic and rushed at the airport, but I made it in time and they didn't make me check my carry-on bag (despite how I'm nearly positive it was too big) and I slept through most of the three hour flight. 

The Romanian airport immediately made me miss Britain-- they don't seem to understand the concept of a queue here! Everyone just sort of jostled together to get through passport control, which was pretty lax. 

Once through, the uncertainty began. I had been told that someone would likely be there to pick me up, but I had no idea where they'd be or what they looked like. I didn't immediately see anyone holding a sign with my name on it, so I wandered around the airport, got some money from an ATM (yes, I did go to a new country without a scrap of its currency on me. No, this didn't stress me out at all... maybe it should have?) attempted to locate a bus that would take me into town, and eventually decided to ask at the information desk, where I finally found the woman who was supposed to pick me up. Apparently she had been at the airport all along, with a sign, but we must have just missed each other. 

She drove me into the centre of Cluj and dropped me off at the hostel where all of us TEFL volunteers will stay until Saturday night. Cluj is Romania's second largest city with a population of 450,000. It's a lovely place-- not too busy, with some picturesque buildings and slightly mountainous countryside visible just beyond. The overwhelming colours are adobe beige, yellow, and pink, with a bit of stone and stucco. 

This afternoon I got the chance to explore a little bit. I set out without looking at the map and wandered along some old walls, climbed up to a university building, and visited a market square complete with cathedral and craft fair (I bought a lovely pair of earrings featuring little bronze ballet dancers). The hostel also had a party to celebrate their 12th anniversary, so I enjoyed the free cake and wine. 

On Saturday, the other TEFL volunteers and I will all be sent out to our placements. I'm going to Suceava, a city of around 90,000 people, in northeast Romania (about half an hour from the borders of Ukraine and Moldova). I'm looking forward to seeing the city, meeting my host family, and starting work teaching English! 

Day 141-143: Prague

I had no expectations for Prague.  Everyone I talked to said they loved it, but I didn't really know what was there that I'd be interested in seeing.

Some brightly coloured buildings in the main square.

Kayla and I arrived mid monday afternoon and checked into our hostel, which was insanely cheap at just €2.70 a night. We were in a dorm with about twenty other girls and there were no kitchen facilities to speak of, but for that price we couldn't complain.

"Up..up...up the stairs we go, until we come to... the tunnel..."
(this tunnel led through a hill up to a museum, not Shelob's lair, thankfully...)

The first night we basically struggled to find food. Without a kitchen, the supermarket had absolutely nothing we could eat for supper, so we ended up at KFC. This was rather helpful, though, since we took the plastic forks and the cardboard boxes and used those for eating cereal and spreading Nutella on bread for the rest of our stay. Necessity is the mother of invention...

The roofs of Prague. I love how I got an aerial view of nearly ever city we visited!

The next morning, we started out trip in Prague with a walking tour. This one wasn't quite as interesting as the tours in other cities but we got a decent sense of Prague and got to meet a number of other people from our hostel. We went out for hot wine afterwards (we had so much hot wine on this trip, since the weather was chilly, and wine was cheaper than coffee!) in a pub where Kafka wrote, and then Kayla and I took a self-guided walking tour around the eastern edge of Prague. 

The pub where Kafka wrote and we enjoyed our first hot wine.

Prague has some nice pubs and cafés. Our first night we went to the Globe, which is also an English language bookstore, and enjoyed some happy hour cocktails while catching up on journaling. The next night we went out with some people from the walking tour, starting out in our hostel bar, moving on to a jazz bar, and concluding in an underground club. Drinks weren't as cheap here as Budapest but definitely better than the UK. It was nice to be able to go out without breaking the bank!

The river through Prague (the Vltava, not the Danube)

On my last day we went to Prague castle and spent the entire day there. At 10am they had the changing of the guard, which seemed to be a mini version of the buckingham palace ceremony. We then bought long-stay tickets, which cost only about $10 and allowed us into pretty much every part of the castle, from the great hall to the dungeon to the cathedral to the tower. It was a fascinating place, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to because I was just so cold and there was really nowhere to warm up.

Changing of the guard at Prague Castle

The next morning Kayla and I went for a quick walk up a hill through some gardens before I had to leave. My flight left at 2:30, but I was at the airport far ahead of time for safety's sake. As it turned out the plane was delayed for de-icing (we actually got about an inch of snow in Prague, which is the most I've seen all winter) but I still arrived in London Luton in time to catch my bus to the city centre.

The John Lennon wall

And that was Prague: pretty, a tad run down, but with far more culture and history than I expected. 

Day 137: Bratislava

We only stayed in Bratislava for one day, which it think is pretty much the ideal length of time to enjoy this fairly small capital of Slovakia. With only 400,000 people, it's quite small for a capital city and so we managed to see pretty much everything in one afternoon.

For a small city, Bratislava can look pretty modern. Visitors can go up this tower on the bridge. 

We arrived at our hostel around one o'clock, where we discovered that, despite having booked two beds in a large dormitory, the hostel had upgraded us to a private room. Definitely a big point in favour of Patio Hostel!

The roofs of Bratislava

The first thing we did was walk up to the castle, which also gave us a lovely view over the town. While we didn't go into the castle (everyone said it wasn't worth the €4 entry fee) we walked around the grounds and enjoyed the architecture. I also had my picture taken with a couple Asian women... not sure if they thought I was a Slav, or if they thought my uber-pale skin was interesting!

One of the central squares- much less grand than Budapest!

After the castle we walked down to the main square, which was the meeting point for our walking tour. That was definitely the best way to spend the afternoon in Bratislava. Our tour guide, a young woman doing her master's degree, was friendly, interesting, and informative, and she really gave us a good sense of Bratislava. She'd show us little things that we never would have noticed, like a chipped spot on the town hall where a plaque used to be marking how high the water rose during a flood. It was also fascinating to learn about Slavic history, especially the relatively recent anti-communist revolts.

Menu at the restaurant we went to- some great student deals!

On the walking tour, there were only two other people, a guy and a girl. Both were exchange students from the US, one studying in Paris, the other in Madrid. After the tour, Kayla and I went out to dinner with them and enjoyed some traditional Slovak food- very carb-heavy and smothered in cheese sauce, but absolutely delicious!

The castle

And that was Bratislava. Short, but sweet. It was neat to visit a country that was so small and had such a turbulent history, but such hope for the future. Its customs could sometimes seem backward (they have a special day where guys throw girls into a river and beat them with willow switches... apparently that does something positive for the girls, but I don't remember what) but it feels like a country that's experiencing a fresh start. I'm excited to see, in the coming decades, how it grows and changes.

Day 134-136: Budapest

Overlooking the Danube (Parliament behind me on the left,
chain bridge and St. Steven's Basilica on the right)

 I had no idea what to expect from Budapest. The name sounds foreign, eastern, even a bit dangerous. My mom told me to be careful; after all, when she was last in the area, the USSR still existed. The quote that kept running through my head was a line from The Avengers, when Hawkeye says to Black Widow: "You and I remember Budapest very differently." Thanks to that, I was expecting some dark place full of intrigue, like in Black Widow's first scene in The Avengers.

Not quite sure what this was... but so fairy-tale-esque!

But, no. I arrived around noon on Monday, January 13th. It was a sunny day, and Budapest seemed dry and dusty, not cold and forbidding. Tripadvisor had warned me that taking public transit into the city was difficult, but I did it anyways and had only a minor problem (I misremembered which metro stop I had to get off at).

The Danube and Parliament at night

Kayla was already in Budapest, having flown in the night before. I met her at the hostel, which at first seemed terribly sketchy. It was small, just a half dozen rooms at the top corner of a large apartment building. The elevator was just a little terrifying- you had to manually shut the doors, and the floor sunk a bit whenever you stepped in. Still, despite initial misgivings, I think the Black Sheep Hostel might have actually been my favourite hostel on our trip, thanks to its friendly atmosphere. It had a full kitchen, so everyone sat around and ate together, especially at the complimentary breakfast. Also, since it was so small, I managed to get to know everyone in the hostel.

The Baths

We started off our time in Budapest by taking a walking tour. Almost every city we went to had free walking tours (tips appreciated) led by local guides, and they were simply invaluable for getting our bearings. In Budapest, the guide took us to a number of places we wouldn't have thought to go, as well as across the river, with some of the most gorgeous views I've ever seen.

One of the ruin bars- such a weird place!

That was the neat thing about Budapest- it's simply beautiful. While a lot of the city is rather run down, it's pretty clean for the most part and there are some majestic buildings down by the river. Their parliament is the 3rd largest in the world (it was the biggest when they built it, but two countries since have surpassed it), and they have some elegant churches, a large palace, and some lovely bridges. It's a very photogenic city, by the river at least, and I took so many photos.

The Danube, seen from the top of the hill

Over our three day stay, Kayla and I took a night riverboat cruise, toured parliament, visited the baths, and went out to the famous Ruin Pubs (old communist warehouses converted into bars) every night. We made new friends, like the boys from Oxford university's hockey team, and met up with some old ones, like another Canadian exchange student who happened to be in Budapest at the same time as us. Our stay in Budapest was busy, but so enjoyable, and I'd definitely recommend it as a sort of 'different' European destination. 

Day 137: Gotta Keep on Moving

(view of Budapest from the top of a mountain-thing)

I'm currently in country number five since leaving Saint Andrews (six, if you count driving through France in the middle of the night) and I've got two more to go before heading off to the UK in a week. Kayla and I just arrived in Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) this morning, and we're already leaving tomorrow morning. All throughout our walking tour today I kept thinking 'We should take a better look at that tomorrow' only to realize that tomorrow I'll be heading off to Vienna.

I'm not sure what I think about this nomadic lifestyle. In some ways it's exhilarating, jumping from country to country, always with new places, people, languages, activities, food, sights... etc... It's so cool to hop on a bus knowing it's going to take me to another country in just a few short hours.

At the same time, though, it's tiring. Not just physically- although my feet certainly are sore!- but more mentally and emotionally. Life is so off anything that could be called routine so it's impossible to settle into a comfortable pattern. Every day is different, so it's hard to mentally keep up with what's going on. You know how you forget what day it is during Christmas vacation? Well, it's getting to the point where I forget what country I'm in!

Emotionally, too, it's exhausting to continually meet new people and places only to lose them a few short hours later. I've met so many neat people recently, in hostels, on tours, and in restaurants, and it's quite likely I'll never see any of them again. On Monday, Kayla and I went out for drinks with some guys from the Oxford hockey team who were touring through Europe, and tonight we ate supper with two American exchange students we met on a walking tour. In both cases, we chatted for a few hours, got to know the people, and then hugged them goodbye. Maybe I'll see them again, but most likely they're gone from my life.

The places, also, are gone so quickly. As much as I love the unusual beauty of these Eastern European countries, I have no plans to return. Never say never, of course, but with some much of the world to see, a return to Bratislava is hardly high priority.  It's so fascinating to be here, learning about the history and culture of this area, but in a week, when I'm back in the west, these places will be nothing but a memory. It's weird to leave a place knowing how it's likely I'll never return.

Travel really isn't what I thought it would be. It's not the effortless jetting from place to place that it always seems like in the movies. It's a panorama of sights and sounds and people and places and greetings and goodbyes and hostels and busses and new friends and unfriendly conductors and nights walking down cobbled streets and mornings climbing mountains and sore feet and cold hands and endless photos. It's everything. 

It's like a kaleidoscope, an ever-changing image. And, just like a kaleidoscope, to get to the next pattern you have to lose the last one. And even if the new place isn't any nicer than the old one, that's okay. The point of a kaleidoscope is change, not creating the perfect pattern. That's why travel isn't about finding the perfect destination- it's about experiencing them all.