Milan, Italy

Is it bad that I have written off Central Europe on this trip? Germany and Italy were to be missed and if I weren't saving 200 Euro, I wouldn't be here. I spent my time in Milan sleeping, eating pizza and thinking. Good thing too since I have have covered a little ground in the last few weeks and really just needed a break.

Perhaps the best way to get over a cold doesn't involve walking by myself in the rain. The trams here are not labeled well nor are the streets. In central Milan the streets change names if you blink. It is expensive here and this is a city of industry, graffiti and appearance. Maybe I didn't look hard enough for the the ever elusive fly hoodie, but the shopping here was OK and overpriced. I did take a little while in and around the Duomo being contemplative. How many folks have come to this building to contemplate their problems? Add one more to that list.

Aggressive travel schedules are unsustainable. I am not upset that I tried doing it, and the last leg of my trip will have a similar pace. But in the meanwhile it´ll be pleasant to take a deep breath and take the time to learn about the places I am in. In the last few places I have been, I didn´t know the language and it´ll be nice to learn little things like how to order a cup of coffee without sounding like a complete idiot. It´d also be nice to have the energy to take detours, like that offer I passed up to go to Florence for a night. I hope to model the rest of this trip like I hope to model my life. I want the vision, energy and will to pull in the direction I want to go instead of letting forces outside me push me in directions I don't.

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a beautiful city, ain't no denying that. The civic planners and architects who designed this place thought hard about scale and building lasting and meaningful structures. Too bad it all caught up. The last few days of drinking, the last few weeks of nonstopgettingonatrainandbus and moving and traveling and going and going, the last few months of exploring the world, and the last few years of change. I am pooped... and that makes me a bit sad since this is a city I have longed to experience.

I still did try my best. The first night I was there I went out to this 5 level club (top to bottom: booty hip-hop, retro, euro house, hard house, and chill house) that is advertised as the biggest club in central Europe. Yes, there were lots of tourist there. Fun, but while this city is beautiful, it is also dirty.

The streets are clean and the trams run on time, but the dirt here is the type that soap doesn't easily wash away. In the course of the night people I met had their wallet stolen, was ripped off and sexually propositioned by cabbies and a very unattractive prostitute touched me in ways that they told me in elementary school strangers shouldn't touch me in an effort to drum up business. I even had half of pack of cigarettes stolen... talk about pretty crime. Hands over pockets and watch who is watching you when you go out here.

The next day I spent chilling and went to see a local reggae show at avenue I passed earlier on a walk. The place had Africans running the door, a friendly drunk Brazilian who was the greeter, Czech bartenders and a Jamaican MC backed by a Czech high school band and a multinational audience. Too bad the band and the sound wasn't all that.

Slept in and then took a walk the next day running into an auto show. When I ever am in the market for a car I think I will go to one of these to get an idea of what I want. The Czech tuners were in effect in the back and while some of the rides were clean, most would get laughed off the streets in Houston. Went out later that night to see the Plastic People of the Universe with a friend from the hostel. They prove that art can be a force to bring down unjust power as they did with their rock and roll against communism. But this night they were just a bunch of old folks getting drunk and rocking out. Funny how things change...

Vienna, Austria

This is Europe, old Europe, old expensive Europe, get all the bang you can get out of the Euro, cause it isn't much, Europe. The place has clean streets, beautiful and large old and modern architecture, history, a bags and bags of shopping and good coffee. The new Wombats hostel is perhaps the best hostel in the world. My experience there has been better then many of the hotels I have stayed in, it can suck one in. First night was spent at the hostel bar and this is a spring break in the fall scene. Seriously for a Euro you can buy a Wombats condom from the vending machine.

Spent the next day wandering around downtown. The Mumek is apparently one the best modern art museums in the world and I say apparently since only 2 floor of 7 were open since they were putting up exhibits. So I took in the permanent collection which hard artists I appreciated. Yoko Ono's conceptual paintings are amazing, but for me breaking up the biggest band in the world is real art. Still, the whole experience at the museum reminded me of strolling the Menil after throwing a little frisbee, except in Houston I did this for free and didn't have to pay 4.50 Euro for the privilege. And that is the problem with art museums in Europe... I can't afford to look in them.

Went out to a college club later that night. It was a bar full of bad Buddha replicas and bad pop music. And to that the few looks and shoves I got... I have no problem dancing amongst the Aryan Youth, but being the darkest person inside (the African bouncer was outside the door) and not being in the best mood to begin with forced me to take a few lung fulls of quieting air to chill me out. I am too pretty to end up in an Austrian drunk tank.

More mellow and rested, we head to the older Wombats hostel the last night. I take a walk along the Danube admiring the amazing buildings here. After a quick shower we go out to this club where there is some fashion show where my ex-roommate's buddy's girlfriend is a model. Chill place that used to be an pedestrian underpass that has leather furniture, 10 euro Maker Marks, and DJ with stupid haircuts and a bag full of instahit eurohouse records. Not to day I didn't dance and act a fool, but it was one of the places that people get together to look good, smell good and loiter around for something (anything)to happen. And folks here did look good: tall duded, corporate kids, skinny model types, sport coat wearing hipsters and the prerequisite amount of internationals. Tre chic. It made me want to hurry up and pay off my loans go I can go about getting an international MBA. A year at Oxford sounds right proper, ya know?

Bratislava, Slovakia

Where does the money from this place come from? It this a smaller version of Moscow? Factories and block apartments surrounding an ancient castle and an ultramodern historic district? NYC/Miami style lounges down the street from doggie accessory shops? And this a quick tram ride to blue collar worker hotels and suburban shopping malls? Why did this former communist state have higher standards of living then the EU average when it joined? I have been negligent in reading the history of the places I travel to.

After missing the train from Budapest we get into the hostel late. Wandered around a little and check out the sights (Slovak beer) and then went back. I am freezing at this point since I don't own anything warmer then a long sleeve shirt. Eastern Europe can make a man get a coughing. Hung out for a bit and then called it an early night.

Next day it was wandering around the castle and the river. The view of the modern architecture, old churches, smoke stacks and the blue Danube from a place defending this area for centuries was... I wonder who the best contemporary Slovak novelist are, because this is a place with stories. I am from Bangladesh and live in Texas and California. I like warmth. I bought a coat.

You'd think that my run in with the law in Bulgaria would wise me up to that fact that transportation police look for folks on trams with backpacks going to and from the train station in former Eastern Bloc countries. Yeah, me too but I got a 35 Euro fine to prove we are both wrong.

Budapest, Hungary

Hostel culture is funny. Crashing in the same room are people who have been on the road for the last 3 years after high school, people who just retired, preppy college kids and drunken idiots. My new travel mate is an exroomate that is like the frat brother I never had. After poor sleep on the train and wandering around the city looking for a hostel we settled into the third one we visited. Now there are party hostels and quiet hostels. If getting locked out of the establishment at 5am being very confused and sporting only a pair of boxers is a problem that might be run into, one should pick the party hostel.

After gathering troops Friday night we checked out a few overpriced tourist traps. People wouldn't let us know of any local places and I think that is because the locals can't afford to drink in the center of Buda or Pest. I finally led (stumbled) into this local biker bar where in the course of a few rounds we befriended the owner/bartender, Panda. After the place shut down he took us out to this unlicensed small guitar bar where folks were smoking cigarettes and drinking a few more beers while listening to U2 and REM covers... Pretty good ones too.

After a good meal the next day we sauntered over to the Szechenyi Baths. Hungarians know how to relax grand style. Highlights" large outdoor pools where one is at 38 degrees, a circle where jets can take you round and round (they spinning!), hot hot sauna with a freezing pool and a fountain of chipped ice just outside, and natural spring water pools. I ended the experience with a mediocre massage... it is OK, I found a way to cope. Cleaned up and went to a local rock show. The band passed the "in tune and in time" test. Stuck around to trainspot the party DJ after the band. Note: Mark Ronson goes well into Blueboy and I ended up taking the nap in a bar with Japanese comics drawn on the ceiling. Has a Big and Tasty at McDonald's to cap the night.

During one of my hangovers I remembered that one of my primary purposes of coming out here was I wanted to check out the Drum and Bass scene here. I stopped going to shows when Clownstep was the buzz and since then I have heard that Hungary has got some of the best stuff coming out. Went to this cool party room/patio called Kultiplex and caught the free Sunday weekly they have there. The warm up DJ wasn't so bad, but later on the DJs were on point and dropped a few things I liked. I dunno... this newer stuff is OK, but I say bring back the Amen. Is that too much to ask?

Bucharest/Transylvania, Romania

Sadly, I don't know what to say about Bucharest. It is an old beautiful European city with vibrant culture and life.. with the exception on Mondays. After getting tired of trying to get out laundry clean for under $US 60 (my clothes aren't even worth that much) we didn't do too much. The city was wandered, espresso was sipped and we did out best to avoid the rabid dogs the guide books told us to keep away from. Later that night we wandered around a large mall where I heard 'Laffy Taffy' being piped in (Gotta love snap music) and then dined at a Dracula themed restaurant. Food amazing, decor tacky and dinner theater being almost bad that it might reach performance art status. Train to Transylvania the next day.

Transylvania is breath taking as in I took my fair lung fulls of clean mountain air. Brasov is a sleepy city about about 400,000 which hosts things like international classical music festivals in the summer and has a pretty well developed tourist infrastructure. History, with the 13th century church in the middle of town square is butted against KFC and sneaker shops. Inflation used to be rampant here and you can buy the fly green Puma motorcycle kicks that just came out for about 2.2 million lei. They are completely replacing the money with new currentcy revalued at a thousandth the old money by the end of the year.

The hostel we were staying at did a day tour of the three large castles in the area. Siniai had the summer crash pad of King Carol I. This was the nicest house I have been in. The detail in everything was brilliant. Hand carved wood walls, mirrors five meters high, a teak furniture set that took three generations of Indians to make, secret stairs, Persian rugs in the hookah room... It must have been good to the king.

Bran Castle is marketed as Dracula's Castle, but history has little evidence that Mr. Vlad the Impaler ever made a cameo here. Cute little castle nonetheless. Then the tour went to Rasnov citadel which is on a hilltop overlooking a little town, farmland and a defunct nuclear power plant. Getting mid evil was ruthless. In the museum there were prints of people being executed by being hung by their feet on public gallows and having hungry dogs hung the same way next to them. The brutality in this area is more then a modern 20th century construct.

Signora is a chill sleepy town nestled in a small valley. Along with a couple of travelers met at the hostel and the train we decided to gout out and get a drink. Tuica is a homemade plum brandy that a few shots along with a few 0.5 L local beers means game over. The next day was strolling through the town to have coffee where Vlad the Impaler was born (now theme restaurant) and a late lunch at a place looking over the town... mellow and pleasant. Said goodbye to my travel mate and then hightailed it to Hungary wondering when I might come back to Romania.

Sofia, Bulgaria

We got into the Eastern Bloc after a bumpy night train ride that involved some 3ish hours of passport control stops. It was a chilly rainy Sunday morning and the only places open at that hour were the liquor stores and the casinos. Was it a miserable weekend or did we look like gypsies? Why didn't anybody smile at us?

We ran afoul with the law within the first hour of arriving. We were slow in understanding to get tickets to the tram and were fined for lack of tickets for us and out over sized packs which apparently need a ticket as well. It was time for a cup of coffee. Add to all this I was fresh out of clean clothes and all the unpleasantness that suggests.

As some consolation the food here is good. For 5 lv ($US 3) I had sweetmeat and rice casserole, a hearty soup, bread and tasty beer for lunch and half a roasted chicken, french fries, bread and more beer for the same price for dinner. Gotta like the architecture here as well. This used to be a beautiful old European city until it got bulldozed with modern buildings fitting a socialist paradise. But between the imposing buildings are a few old amazing worship halls and new touches to warm the place. I really enjoyed the renovated Royal Palace which houses the the National Art Gallery. All of the painting and sculptures were portraits or figures, which I thought was strange. My favorite part were the original floors which were all creak creak when walked upon.

We did some wandering, shopping and internet and then headed back the the train about 12 hours after arriving. We called it a country and headed on to Bucharest...

Thessaloniki, Greece

The young folks flock here in the many cafes and bars that line the sidewalks. Fashionably dressed, frappes are drunk and cigarettes are smoked; the people here are relaxed. This feels like a university town with European sophistication, ie. no frat boys. But perhaps this was a high school town as well while I was here since there was a teachers strike. Still, very chill.

We spent the last day in the Athens area at he Cape of Sounion. The place is known for the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon and the sunset over the Mediterranean. After a bit of sun, we hightailed it back to get on a night train. A couchette seat is like a couch, but smaller and barely padded meaning one can barely sleep. From now on I am springing the extra 10 Euro and riding on the sleeper car.

We spent the first night in a hotel getting lost, enjoying travelers tiffs and eating our fair share of gyros and spanikopitas. Oh yum. We then met up with our host the next night who was hosting a local Couchsurfing gathering. In preparation for the meeting we went to her Grandparents' house where it was mission critical that we sample the food and deserts being served. And then test again. And again. Not being allowed to say no means that I resort to eating slowly in small bites and not drawing any unnecessary attention. These are tricks I honed in Taiwan.

The party was fun and I met Greeks from varied backgrounds, a couple of Poles and a hitchhiking Aussie. In between sips of tasty inexpensive Greek wine and more drags of more cigarettes they talked about things like how joining the EU doubled the cost of living, but left salaries stagnant. And how those low wages are making the traditional marriage a thing of the past since you need 3 jobs in a household to raise kids properly. And how college kids are studying hard and trying not to think about joining the ranks of the unemployed after graduation if they don't have the right combination of luck and connections. Oh, we talked about other things as well into the night and the cops even showed up for a little chat. You know it is a good party when it gets the official seal of approval.

Athens, Greece

I have decided that I will never take a two hour long 3 am flight again. Wisdom comes from experience and being cracked out comes from no sleeping. Athens feels familiar. My traveling buddy says that it is a mixture of San Francisco, New York and the third world. I don't agree with the latter nor do I have my mind wrapped around what that exactly means. But the rest... example: on the path between the Acropolis and the Parthenon we were asked by a couple of kids if we wanted a smoke. It was like talking a Golden Gate park after some light record digging at Amoeba.

Graffiti, with the exception of the ancient monuments, is everywhere here. It is mostly eye level spray planted tags with a few good burners, artsy pieces and the occasional bit of stencil work. Being back in a Western country, I can smell the records and I am doing my best to avoid the expense and the weight that comes with it. It doesn't help that my ipod died on me and I am traveling without my 4 gigs of jammy jams. I think I will try and emulate John Cage and just listen to the ambient sounds and music played by others to come with a freash attitude toward sounds. Or maybe I will just go nuts. I'd be love to just to listen to stuff just to get snippets of songs and beats that are on continuous loop continuous loop continuous loop out of my head. Good thing I like repetitive music.

This European Union and their fiscal policies are going to wreck my check book. Coming from places where the dollar is strong, paying for stuff in Euro is a bit painful. Still, I can understand why folks like it here. We had tasty Greek dinner last night in a public mall with wine, musicians and the night sky. Not cheap, but very pleasant.

There is a haze around Athens. It might be from all the cars here in this valley, but will all these sidewalks and public transport it somehow seems like there is more to that story... then perhaps not; this is a city ater all. Things I once took for granted (ie. being able to drink tap water, spinach, looking a woman in the eye) have new found appreciation. Things here are paced different as well and I don't think there is the regimented schedule that is found in the US. My favorite is lingering after a dinner is over and just chilling. Shoveling food in my face and then leaving is great and all, but having it be the prelude to a converstaion is where it is at.

Cairo, Egypt

It is my last day in Cairo and I am excited about my next steps. Tomorrow I will be meeting up with one of my best buddies and through the rest of this trip I will be traveling with friends, some of whom I have known for more then a decade. I still have space in my itinerary and am accepting applications to travel with me for a couple of nights in Milan and two weeks across Spain. Come on, everyone is doing it… it’ll make you feel good.

I am grateful to my hosts in Cairo for giving me a space to just sit and be for a while. I should have read a book and looked at a calendar to realize that the month of mercy, forgiveness and emancipation from hell wasn’t the best time to come, but I am glad I did. Yesterday I crossed off one of the last things on my to do list which was to visit some of the other pyramids around Cairo. The first stop was Saqqara, the oldest stone monument in the world. Sit on this for a minute… I am 28 years old, the U.S of A is 230 years old and this step pyramid is 4656 years old. How did the folks who commissioned and built this thing like their eggs? Did their kids play kick the earthenware pot? Did their adolescents act like complete idiots when they first fell in love? I don’t know and I can’t even imagine what the folks inhabiting the world will behave 4656 years into the future. Hell I have a hard time envisioning what’s going to happen 6 years from now.

It was an impressive complex, magnificently restored and continuously being dug up. On another part of the site was a place where you could still see the carven images on the walls. Most of the ones I paid attention to involved food. Those Egyptian royalty sure looked like they ate good. Six years from now, I bet we are going to able to fit a terabyte of information onto something that will fit on our key chains. Ignoring exactly what ideas we are going to store on all that digital space, how long will that information last? One can’t argue against the permanence stone as media.

My driver and I then traveled about 15 km to Dahshur. This might be my favorite of all the pyramid areas since it is secluded, the red pyramid has the most impressive inner chambers one can climb into and there was the least hassle from touts. I say this might be since I only got to spend 15 minutes there before getting asked to leave by the tourist police. Ramadan hours puts a cramp in my style again.

We then drove past palm trees loaded down with dates and through dusty streets full of small kids in uniforms just out of school, donkey carts and women minding vegetable displays to Abu Sir. Now, Abu Sir is a site closed to tourists, but if you talk to Abdul up front and fork over LE 20 and perhaps another LE 20 and then maybe a mechanical pencil and a Sharpie marker one might be able to get a hurried tour in broken English and snap a few shots. Lots of great hieroglyphics and some dilapidated piles of bricks in rough pyramid form. This is the site visible from my hosts’ balcony. I do wish I got off my keister and spent more time out of the Nile river valley in the desert while I was in Egypt. The desert reminds me of what the ocean looked like in Thailand where it was just water and the huge skies replacing the wet stuff with brownish yellow sand. If only desert wasn’t so so hot…