Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Notes From the Road: Marseille

I was poking through my saved Gmail drafts a few minutes ago (I guiltily admit to distracting myself from studying for Thursday’s biology exam), and found a little piece of writing that I had no idea I had saved. I wrote it at the end of 2007 when I traveled to the South of France to visit my dear old friend, Ryan, from high school, who had been teaching English in a cozy little town called Salon de Provence. While visiting, we took a number of day trips, to Aix-en-Provence, Avignon (side note: skip the audio tour at the Palais de Papes, unless you’re that type of person that enjoys wading through intolerable aural drudgery of the exact specifications of the pope’s miter, width and thread type of sheets in the papal bedroom, and general other rigamarole that will make you want to throw yourself off the side of the palace into Avignon’s river, all read by a pretentious British man who goes a little too heavy on the received pronunciation). I guess I penned the following after heading into Marseille for the day – I am unsure, because, somewhat creepily, the text resides in the draft of an e-mail written to no one. The piece of writing wasn’t actually doing anything just sitting as a draft, and I thought I’d share it here, just for shits and grins, and just because I think it’s a fun little piece of writing about an incredible French city, an experience that had some intriguing cultural ramifications, and a nice selection of honest, candid travel writing that might demonstrate my evolution as a traveler.

“Yesterday, we all went to Marseille via the bus from Aix. I had heard about how ghetto Marseille was, and did not quite know what to expect from the seaside city. The bus from Aix was another brush with the French interstate experience – this one, slightly stultifying and quite uncanny. At one point, on the freeway to Marseille, there emerged a gigantic shopping mall on the side of the interstate. Now, I had been to many indoor shopping malls in Europe – including one in Romania that bore a frightening resemblance to Stonestown [an indoor mall in San Francisco]. But, this outdoor shopping mall looked exactly like something in America – I had never seen anything like it, nor had I imagined anything like it in Europe – I thought they were better than all of it. It had a huge French home depot-type store, furniture places, large toy stores, auto repair places, several McDonald’s, requisite Chinese fast food places, and, the piece de resistance – a Buffalo Grill, an imitation French Outback Steakhouse – at which Brett [another dear old friend from high school] and I actually ate our first time in France [in 2001] – in its own establishment near the side of the freeway. It even had the look of a Chili’s, Applebees, or TGI Friday’s at the side of the rode – the rectangular building with the sloped roof, painted trim, and a separate area for dumpsters. I could not believe it – every Buffalo Grill I had seen before had usually been nestled in old buildings in the city, somewhat inconspicuous, with nondescript exteriors. What a hilarious establishment – when Brett and I went years ago, in Paris’ République, there were cow skulls adorning the wall, paintings of cacti, and photos of Native Americans on the placemats. I simply stared with utter amazement, and realized that the American interstate has truly reached Europe. Maybe that could be a book I write – the quest for the American interstate around the world – and make some commentary on globalization.

The arrival into Marseille was as advertised, with rows and spirals of low-income French HLM housing [French housing projects] in sandstone colored highrises with Spanish tile roofs. All seemed to have laundry flapping on clotheslines on the balconies. The monochromatic buildings extended for some minutes on the road, the scheme only broken some buildings featuring huge neon signs. Upon arrival, we walked through a heavily Arab neighborhood, with no fewer than 29 places selling counterfeit Diesel jeans and Nikes. We turned right, and headed into the more affluent downtown, and headed for the sea. Marseille is truly beautiful – we walked around meandering streets, all filled with a hodgepodge of sandstone colored buildings, typical French apartments, and high rises with ornate metal balconies. The wind was blowing fiercely off the Mediterranean, with whitecaps appearing and disappearing and yachts bobbing in the harbor. Marseille has all sorts of cool, little, hidden neighborhoods, seeming to exist in loops and whorls on narrow, hilly, roads. I would love to live there.”

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 29, 2009
in General Travel
. 1 Comment

Iraq and Eastern European Extravaganza Part 5: Day 2 in Skopje

Part 1/2: Prologue

Part 1: New York LaGuardia (LGA) to Washington National on US Airways

Part 2: Washington Dulles (IAD) to Frankfurt (FRA) on United

Part 3: FRA – Vienna (VIE) – Skopje (SKP) on Austrian

Part 4: Arrival in Skopje, and Day 1 in Skopje

Part 5: Day 2 in Skopje

Part 6: A bit more Skopje

Part 7: Daytrip to Pristina, Kosovo

Part 8: SKP – Zagreb (ZAG) – VIE on Croatian Airlines

Part 9: VIE – Erbil, Iraq (EBL) on Austrian

Part 10: Erbil, Iraq

Part 11: EBL – VIE on Austrian

Part 12: Hilton Vienna Stadtpark

Part 13: VIE – Zurich (ZRH) – JFK on Swiss

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Part 5: Day 2 in Skopje

Nine hours of sleep.

Permit me to expound upon this miracle accomplishment after my first night in Skopje, Macedonia. I had retired at about 12.30am, that morning, and woken at around 9.30am. I exult because I had managed to finally find a way to gather a full night’s sleep after arrival in a wacky time zone. Normally, when I travel, though I fight to stay awake though it feels as if someone is trying to pinch my eyeballs shut with a Vice grip, I manage to fall asleep for a few hours, only two awaken, disoriented, for another two, at some odd hour of the morning, and then, if I do fall back asleep, it’s more another gritty two hours. And, as always, jetlag’s death grip takes hold of me the next day, after I awaken at 7am, feel good until about 2pm, then, hope that I am hit by a bus just so I do not have to stay awake. In another recent trip to Uzbekistan, my first night in Tashkent, I had arrived at my hotel at 5.30am, and had only been able to sleep until 7.30am, which made for an utterly wonderful next day.

Not today, though. I’m going to sound like a druggie as I write this paragraph, but I finally found the solution that slowly tucked me into a blissful sleep known only to angels, cherubs, and other higher deities, a little friend with a few benzene rings, a carbonyl, and a scientifically name known as zolpidem tartrate – or, better known by it’s cool-kid nickname, Ambien. Goodness gracious – I’ve never had major surgery (knock on wood) but, I imagine the effect is similar to when the anesthesiologist asks you to count backwards from ten. I remember putting my head on the pillow, and then, waking up to the brilliant Skopje sun. I had grown so tired of jetlag ruining trips, and was so pleased to find a solution.

I clad myself in shorts, a t-shirt,  flip flops, and my quasi-douchebag Boston Red Sox cap (well, anything associated with the Red Sox is quasi-douchebag) that I swear I only purchased because I liked the particular design of the log with two angled red socks, and that I am not some bandwagon tool celebrating a baseball team with the second highest payroll in the sport, but I digress), knowing the that sun would show up in full force that day. I was ready for my first full day of touring Skopje – except, I had no map, and utterly no idea where to find anything in the general area. Not a problem, at all. It was, I must admit, the type of travel I enjoy most – no general plan, no hurry, no constraints, and best of all, no idea. I would simply wind my way around the city, only limited by my own capriciousness, and stop and admire anything the piqued my interest. No guidebook would be necessary.

I did, however, want to purchase a map, just for a general idea of the city’s layout. I would also need to purchase a bottle of water, and some sunscreen, or I would be covered with melanoma by the end of the hour. Luckily, for some reason, my hotel was a block and a half within three pharmacies, for some reason. I stepped into the boiling morning, and made the short walk to the pharmacy, on a bustling main drag. The streets from my hotel leading to the busy street were wonderfully calm and pleasant, dotted with a few quiet stores and offices, only have the placidity shattered by a Macedonian driver redlining his Skoda up the street with the fervor of a competitor at Le Mans. On sort of a side note, I found the Macedonians, in general (save for the cab driver who was the unfortunate antagonist of my previous segment) simply wonderful people – pretty much always kind, smiling, or at least cheerful in their interactions. That demeanor seemed to peel away like rubber burning off their tires when they entered their cars, and took to the streets with vicious numbers of RPMs, treating the road like their own personal test course. I would have to fling myself out of the way many a time in my days in Skopje, to avoid being hit and afflicted with the type of injury that would require my femurs to be pinned together with metal screws.

Rather boring photograph of the main Skopje drag near my hotel.

Rather boring photograph of the main Skopje drag near my hotel.

Personally, I couldn’t wait to buy sunscreen. As a traveler, these types of experiences – the ones that best mimic the quotidian – are my most memorable travel moments. I love foist myself into the reality of everyday life in a foreign country. Sure, I love site-seeing, admiring museums, and drinking so much on the hostel pub crawl that I end up making out with a Swedish au pair traveling through Europe that will have to leave at 3.30am that morning to catch her FlyBaboo flight back to Arlanda, but to me, the richest and most profound travel experiences come from when I get to sample the everyday life of a citizen – where do I purchase my office supplies? A spark plug? An industrial-sized tin of cocktail sauce?  Those experiences make me feel as if I am truly there, and not just some temporary itinerant with a passport and a hotel reservation.

I strode into a pharmacy, and said, using my finest English,  to the pharmacist, “Do you speak English?”

“Yes,” she replied with a confident nod and blink of the eyes, as if idiots dressed in Red Sox caps from America strode into Macedonian pharmacies all the time.

“Do you sell sunscreen?” I asked. That didn’t seem to work. “Uh, protection – from the sun,” I added.

“Yes, we do. How powerful would you like?”

Oh, I didn’t know. I did some calculations in my head based on what I had seen at drugstores back home – and thought that technology had us up to SPF 60 by now. I figured that 60 most likely inflicted more damage than it offered protection, so I should go a bit lower. “About 40 or 50 would be fine,” I replied.

She jumped, startled, wide-eyed, as if I had just told her I wanted to splash myself with hydrochloric acid. Apparently, anything above 30 is unheard of in Macedonia – or, perhaps there exists some sort of metric system type conversions of which I am truly ignorant for SPF, like miles and kilometers. Nevertheless, I settled for 30.

“Would you like cream, or milk?” she asked.

“What’s the difference?” I inquired.

“Milk has a bit more, uh, uh, uh . . . ” She pause, and tried to motion.

“Consistency?” I offered.

“Yes!” she said, chuckling. “Consistency. Milk is very good.”

With my SPF-30 milk sunscreen in hand, I happily strode out of the pharmacy, buoyed by another seemingly real-life and everyday experience. I got the same type of high buying contact lens solution in Rome. Yes, I have issues.

I bought a bottle of water at one of the ubiquitous small roadside stands, where I was also greatly overcharged for a map of Skopje that looked as if it had been used to wash a car. The guy selling it actually had to refold it to sell it to me, and even then, he couldn’t hide the rips in the corners and smears of who the hell knows what that covered the map. I was ready to begin touring.

I did my due diligence and looked for Better and Best water, and was pleased not to find Questionable and Downright Undrinkable brand water.

I did my due diligence and looked for "Better" and "Best" water, and was pleased not to find "Questionable" and "Downright Undrinkable" brand water.

I knew of the general direction of the supposed downtown. I figured I would explore the main part of the city first, then make my way back to my hotel in the late afternoon via the huge fort on a hill that overlooked the city. I began to walk along the main street, stopping to peek at the map, and thought I was heading the wrong direction. I made a left, another left, and eventually walked down the same streets that I had taken me to the park for my run yesterday. It was then I learned a valuable Macedonian lesson: cross the streets with the locals. Crossing any bigger street was like trying to cross a freeway, and I eventually learned just to wait for when someone local wanted to cross, and I would tag along with them, I’m sure, looking extremely creepy, but keeping my body intact. Some photos from the first part of the walk:

My fav, of course - Eastern European type apartment blocks. I controled myself with photography of apartment blocks, this time.

My fav, of course - Eastern European type apartment blocks. I controled myself with photography of apartment blocks, this time.

Love the Spanish tile and the mountains in the background.

Love the Spanish tile and the mountains in the background.

Main street with more modern buildings.

Main street with more modern buildings.

A main corner, with people crossing the street and surviving!

A main corner, with people crossing the street and surviving!

For the spectacularly directionally challenged, these types of signs help immensely.

For the spectacularly directionally challenged, these types of signs help immensely.

Eastern Orthodox church.

Eastern Orthodox church.

The first of many hilariously named items that day.

The first of many hilariously named items that day.

Ducking down a side street.

Ducking down a side street.

After returning to the park, I decided to give it a bit of look. I wandered past a section of restaurants, one of which that had delightful outside seating a wonderful looking pizzas, and I decided I would return there later for lunch, and then walked by Macedonia’s national soccer stadium, a kind of, uh, interesting looking piece of architecture that I can only really liken to an open oyster shell. Though the very inviting park flanked the stadium on the right, most of the area surrounding the stadium seemed unkempt, unmaintained, and was splashed with graffiti. At least most of the graffiti was pro-local team.

View inside the stadium. Check out those seats!

View inside the stadium. Check out those seats!

Sadly, I must admit, it really reminds me of where the Oakland As play, or the old RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.

Sadly, I must admit, it really reminds me of where the Oakland A's play, or the old RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.

Uh oh! Watch out for Skopjes most notorious gang!

Uh oh! Watch out for Skopje's most notorious gang!

View of the City Park.

View of the City Park.

I then decided to follow the river, turned left on a bridge, crossed, and made my way into downtown. Again, I really had no idea to where I was headed, just a general direction of the layout. The city immediately turned a bit grittier, much more crowded, and much more bustling (you know, as, uh, downtowns tend to be). It also became much shabbier, as if the department of public works didn’t really make stops in that side of Skopje, with many open holes in the ground, exposed wires and metal, and crumbling curbs. The area also felt much more hodgepodge, as if the density of stores had increased exponentially. There were many more small business, crammed into jagged streets, seemingly at angles, like some sort of live MC Escher painting, mostly selling those bizarre brands of jeans you’ve never, ever seen or heard of (seriously – where do they get all those pairs?), handbags, and roasted peanuts. I had never seen so many places selling peanuts in my life. In the blazing sun, I simply walked, again, with no real direction. I explored a market place, with people selling vegetables, nuts, grain, and meat under a huge tent. The meat, I was worried to notice, did not seem to have any refrigeration, and served as a regular landing zone and airport for flies.

The area was also replete with mosques, their characteristic minarets poking out of the skyline like characters in a Whack-a-Mole game. I explored a few of them, stopping to listen to the calls to prayer, watch the men pray, or sit talking in the shade. In what I’m sure was a horrendously offensive maneuver, I do confess to using one of the spigots outside a large mosque to put water in my hat in some almost futile attempt for cooling myself off (it was really fucking hot, okay?)

View along the river, with the main fort.

View along the river, with the main fort.

View to the east of the city, the same view I saw while running the previous evening.

View to the east of the city, the same view I saw while running the previous evening.

Approach downtown - its getting much more commercial.

Approach downtown - it's getting much more commercial.

The much denser, more angular city center steets.

The much denser, more angular city center steets.

Crowded streets.

Crowded streets.

Mosque.

Mosque.

Though hilarious, this shirt would have absolutely nothing on some of the shirts I would later see for sale in Iraq. Thats the spirit, Macedonians. You keep it up.

Though hilarious, this shirt would have absolutely nothing on some of the shirts I would later see for sale in Iraq. That's the spirit, Macedonians. You keep it up. Please note the Calven Klain underwear, as well.

Orthodox church spire, next to a minaret.

Orthodox church spire, next to a minaret.

My personal favorite mosque.

My personal favorite mosque.

Tryin to get artsy with the minaret.

Tryin' to get artsy with the minaret.

After an exploration of the downtown area, I made a left turn off to another larger street that, well, seemed to be the import/export district of Skopje, mostly selling kitchen furnishings, marble, and plastic tricycles. Seriously, ever store sold the same collection of items – how on earth did they distinguish themselves from one another? Better prices? Or did storekeepers post claims, written in those garish letters, akin to car dealerships, that their shoddily-constructed plastic tricycles and garbage can lids were better than the jerk’s next door? I walked through the long street with a sense of amusement, and at the end of the road, stumbled upon a more impoverished district. Now, I know I should seek professional help, but, for some reason, I have some sort of perverse attraction to impoverished areas when traveling. I know – it’s truly stupid – I wouldn’t walk into East Cook County or South Philly with a gawking eye when traveling in the US, then, why the hell would I do such a thing abroad? Again, I think it stems from my desire to root out real life when traveling, separate myself as someone just visiting, and try to experience a raw, authentic view of the city. Anyway, so, like an idiot, I stumbled into a crumbling area, snapped a few furtive pictures, and then, as I was walking, spotted a mother sitting outside with her children. Of course, she spotted me, as well, and then siced her two grubby little boys on me. They both ran up, chattering in Macedonian, with smiles on their faces.  I was caught. Sigh. I know what to do when kids come by, though – keep your hands tightly in both of your pockets so they can’t slide anything out (this trick works well, too, when being physically attacked by hookers, in Bratislava, as well – but, that’s another story for another time, and yes, my friend and I were minding our own business when we were accosted by prostitutes, not soliciting their services), and keep checking behind you to see if there is some sort of distraction-sleight-of-hand maneuver occurring. I, obviously, had no idea what they were saying – most likely something like, “Make one more step, and we’ll cut out your spleen.” I kept trying to talk to them, stupidly, in English, actually interested in what they wanted, my idiotic mind thinking it was something other than money. Eventually, their hands went out, their palms went up, and as I tried to walk away, they followed me. I dug into my pockets, and handed them a few Dinar (about 14 cents worth). I briefly debated handing them the novelty “two Euro discount coin” I had been given by Lufthansa at Frankfurt to use with duty free shopping, but that thought that might’ve been too mean. But, I will post my hopefully Pulitzer Prize winning photos of poverty in Skopje as consolation. That 14 cents was worth my voyeurism.

The kitchenwear district.

The kitchenware district.

A shortlived venture into the impoverished area. Oops!

A shortlived venture into the impoverished area. Oops!

At that point, I got the hell out of there, not wanting to be met by a whole gauntlet of conniving little children who would strip me of everything and hogtie me to a satellite dish somewhere in the neighborhood. I made my way back, somehow made some right turns, ended up walking through a shoe district (seriously, just how much does Skopje localize their districts), climbed a hill, in the still relentless sunshine, and realized I was on the hill fort, Fort Kale, that overlooked the city. The City has preserved the excavated ruins of the fort, the wall, and many of the guardtowers.  I pushed my way through the hordes of schoolchildren, and walked in.

Even with the heat, and with enough young’uns to rival Disneyland, the fort was a marvelous way to end a great day of touring in Skopje. I parked myself between stones on the crenelated wall, and found myself in a cocoon of calm, and just let myself stare at the city, and the mountains. Some views from the fort, and the fort itself:

Love those surrounding mountains.

Love those surrounding mountains.

Guard tower.

Guard tower.

Better snap of the stadium.

Better snap of the stadium.

I then walked down the hill, crossed the river, and back to the park where I enjoyed a leisurely, if a bit overpriced, lunch by the park. Not to worry, though, I had a book, time, and the memories of a wonderful day exploring an eclectic and bustling city. The downtown, it seems, is not the nicest of cities, with nothing particularly memorable in terms of sites, but its feel, its ambiance, its energy, and its electricity, buttressed against the leisurely pace and quiet elegance of the mosques make it a really fun place to visit. A simply wonderful experience, though, I must say, I was glad I was staying out of the gritty fray of downtown, in the leafy, quieter, and a bit foodier/artisier area of my hotel.

I’ll write more about the evening, the night, and the early morning in the next segment, because, well, let’s say, that night didn’t end until very, very light, with one of those wonderful twists that can only happen while traveling. Stay tuned.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 28, 2009
in Photographs and Trip Reports
. 3 Comments

Pumpin' Out the Next Segment of That Trip Report . . .

Oh, don’t you worry folks – it’ll be up in just a bit. I’m working on it now. I swear.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 27, 2009
in General Blog Blather and Trip Reports
. 0 Comments

Meeting One of the Greats – Face to Face

Well, dear friends, I say with a rather sheepish grin that I must delay the trip report for another day. Yes, it’s partly because of learning about the intricacies of protein separation techniques (which, might be the most stunnnnnningly awful subject on the planet) – but, it’s also because I am going to meet up with Dan Webb, composer of the acclaimed airline biz blog Things in the Sky. We’ll meet at the Marriott Marquis, near Times Square, where Dan is actually staying, and I’m sure I’ll be politely, but firmly, asked to leave upon entering the lobby.

In terms of industry analysis, Dan is much smarter than I and much more savvy at parsing anything business and financially related in the airline industry. He actually knows how economics work, stock trading functions, and can define terms such as “notes,” and “liquidity” (seriously – I have no idea what that means). I’m sure while I’m struggling to pay my student loans, and living under an overpass, and responding to creosote-soaked pyramid scheme flyers posted on telephone polls as legitimate forms of investment, Dan will be the CEO of a major airline.

I only hope he’ll be kind enough to give me a position as a janitor some day.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 25, 2009
in Other Blogs
. 0 Comments

Airline Logos – Up Close

Old pal Matt sent me this fantastic website featuring the top 50 airline logos. Yes, some airlines displayed on the site are defunct, but the website, overall, is still quite fun to explore (for airline perverts), and provides an intimate look at airline logos (for airline perverts). Seeing the logo up close allows one to see the intricacies and the subtly of each piece of artistry, something one really isn’t able to see from the terminal window, or when crossing from the jetway into the aircraft. Check it out.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 24, 2009
in Great Websites
. 4 Comments

Idyllic New Amtrak Commercial, Not so Idyllic Prices

As any good travel nerd has done, I’ve often stood in the heat and frenetic underground of Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and gazed with that sense of travel romanticism at Amtrak’s destination board, at the myriad of departures, the routes spiced with an exotic and giddiness inducing names such as “Pacific Surfliner,” “Amtrak Cascades,” and “Silver Star.” After staring for a few minutes, I’ll usually meander over to an automatic ticketing machine, and start punching together a route, wondering what it would be like to just say “what the hell,” and ride the rails to the Blue Ridge Mountains, Washington, DC, or really anywhere fun sounding along one of the lines.

There certainly exists a certain allure to train travel – that cachet of traveling on a route cut especially for your train, and your train only, privy to the splendors of scenery, feats of architecture along trestles, and a privileged look at geology and engineering as you rumble through the tunnel. The gentle clacking of the rails, the slight bobbing of the car, and the chance to watch the world just simply whirl by your window at close range make me want to don a brown will suit, clench a pipe in my teeth, stick a newspaper under my arm, and rakishly tip my bowler hat on my head as clutch my briefcase and head to the platform in a billow of smoke, a pierce of whistle, and an old-timey “All aboard!” and let the train whisk me away.

I’ve been thinking about some train travel up and down the Eastern Seaboard ever since I saw a new Amtrak commercial on TV (posted at the end). It begins with a montage of slightly precocious children acting out some well-placed gripes with a-la-carte pricing of air travel, gas prices, delays, excruciating waits at the runway. The whining remains clever, accented with excellent cinemtography (is that what you call good camerawork in commercials? I did like the rack focus on the airplanes in line for takeoff), great props, and never, ever resorting to the run-of-the-mill-media-propegated-bellyaching about the travel agency with trite, overused phrases such as “nickeled-and-dimed.” It then cuts to a sun-drenched attic, with a so-nostalgia-inducing-you-could-just-puke HO-gauge (I think – any model train nerds out there, correct me)-model train set, with a circling Amtrak train, a hearty blast of whistle, and a shot of a figuring couple embracing. Amtrak really nails it – it makes the train look exactly how one pictures the train in these halcyon musings – as a stopper of cars, traverser of impenetrable rock formations, and reuniter of true love. I found it just charming. Sure, we love to hearken back to the days of air travel when every good traveler donned their Sunday best and stepped aboard the Flying Boat for a 29 day trip from Idlewild to the San Francisco Bay, complete with 900 fuel stops, but air travel will never ever regain that romantic form. Security is simply too irritating and invasive, the lines are too long, and airports too loud and bustling, bombarding us with announcements not to leave our cars unattended, or that the USO center is open. Though it has  certainly changed, train travel, methinks, is the closet we can find to travel with dignity and that channels our feelings of nostalgia and romanticism.

With all of the fun of waxing poetically about train travel, though, for a trip up to Boston, or a trip down to DC, it remains, though, a pricey way to travel. For instance, I checked a weekend from NYC to Boston on Amtrak in October, and it clocked in at about 120 dollars round trip. Not a terrrrrrrrrrrible price of course, about 80 bucks cheaper than the cheapest flight on that same weekend. That price, however, is for a regional train that takes over four hours to reach Boston, the same duration of time as taking a bus. A bus costs anywhere from three bucks, to 30 bucks, depending on the advance purchase. If I wanted to reach Boston or DC more expediently, I could take Amtrak’s high-speed-train derivative Acela, for a much more elevated price.

For now, romantic travel will simply have to wait. It ain’t as pretty, ain’t as fun, and ain’t as well, dignifying, as taking the train, but spot I hit on the Eastern Seaboard will be via bus – or, if we want to euphamistically elevate that particular form of transport, “motorcoach.”

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Published
by
G.Ro
on September 22, 2009
in General Travel, Trains and Video
. 1 Comment

El Flakarino

Truly my bad, folks. I’ve been rushing around and a bit out of sorts today, and was unable to post a review of the Boston trip, and that damn trip report segment. Tomorrow may be a bit tight, as well, with late class, section, and professor office hours, and thus, the trip report might need to wait until Wednesday.

Very sorry for the flakiness!

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 21, 2009
in General Blog Blather
. 0 Comments

My Finest Discovery

Well, I figure I’d better post my best discovery in Boston this afternoon:

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 19, 2009
in Photographs and United
. 0 Comments

Traveling by Bus Tomorrow!

Yes, folks, wayyyyyy back when, I wrote about that there now perhaps exists less stigma with taking a long-distance bus, especially along the Eastern Seaboard to destinations such as New York, Boston, or Washington, DC, where trains are expensive, and flights are even pricier. Tomorrow, I will join the ranks of bus takers, when I venture up to Boston to visit an old friend.

Th0ugh I always love plane flights, and have a similar fascination with train travel, I must say that I am excited to take to the interstate by bus. Road travel permits a certain intimacy and depth to your trip, where you’re simply passing over features of the land, but rather, you can look at every inch of it, with the benefit of road signs and markers to know exactly where you are, and what will happen if you continue forth. And, in my East Coast ignorance, coming from California and my college years spent driving the stretch of Highway 5 on trips to and from Southern California with roommates, I’m looking forward to adding some new traffic veins to my repertoire, and learning some of the highways out here. Moreover, I really have no idea what it’s like to leave New York City by car. As minute as that may sound, I’ve only ever left by train or by plane, and with the size and concentration of the island, it seems almost impossible to me that one can soon branch from the mayhem of Manhattan onto quick-flowing interstate.

I’m also quite happy to return to Boston, one of my absolute favorite cities in the world. The bus has power and wifi (more features than most US airlines!) and I’ll be able to relax and get some good study time in for the four hour drive.

I’ll of course, too, make some time for looking out the window.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 18, 2009
in Trips/Ventures/Sojourns
. 3 Comments

Iraq and Eastern Europe Extravaganza Part 4: Part 4: Arrival in Skopje, and Day 1 in Skopje

Part 1/2: Prologue

Part 1: New York LaGuardia (LGA) to Washington National on US Airways

Part 2: Washington Dulles (IAD) to Frankfurt (FRA) on United

Part 3: FRA – Vienna (VIE) – Skopje (SKP) on Austrian

Part 4: Arrival in Skopje, and Day 1 in Skopje

Part 5: Day 2 in Skopje

Part 6: A bit more Skopje

Part 7: Daytrip to Pristina, Kosovo

Part 8: SKP – Zagreb (ZAG) – VIE on Croatian Airlines

Part 9: VIE – Erbil, Iraq (EBL) on Austrian

Part 10: Erbil, Iraq

Part 11: EBL – VIE on Austrian

Part 12: Hilton Vienna Stadtpark

Part 13: VIE – Zurich (ZRH) – JFK on Swiss

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Part 4: Arrival in Skopje, and Day 1 in Skopje

N.B.: This section of the report isn’t so picture heavy – mostly, as a result, as you will see, of the harried and frenetic nature of my arrival. Not to worry – I took many, many pictures on Day Two, which I will feature in the next section.

Skopje tarmac.

Skopje tarmac.

This image was one of my first views of Skopje, on the airport tarmac, from the airplane window. Yes, they were using tractors to pull the baggage carts, something, perhaps a bit ignorantly and ethnocentrically, I took as a measure of the condition of the country. Perhaps, too, it elicited a bit of surprise on my part because I was arriving in a city of which I knew absolutely nothing, besides a cursory reading on Wikitravel. I also had a name of prospective hotel, but not reservation, no map, and no idea how I would get there. And, maybe, I had just a touch of travel hubris, having traveled to several Eastern European countries some years back, and thought that I could simply throw things together once I hit the ground.

I descended the steps of the airplane into the steaming afternoon, and made my way to customs. After a quick stamp of the passport, it was a quick walk through baggage claim, and then, just like that, onto the curb, into more blazing son, and hordes of people. The airport, I noticed immediately, was tiny – with one room for arriving, and one larger room for departures. The activity outside the airport was immense, and just as I expected, began to be hassled immediately by sketchy looking guys asking if I needed a taxi. Not wanting to jump into an unlicensed taxi with three wheels, no back seat, and a Red Vine for a seatbelt with a total fare of 900 Euros demanded by a grizzled man with a Kalashnikov, I pushed my way through the throngs and entered the departure building, hoping to stop and think for a bit, and make a plan. I realized there existed only one taxi rank, and, well, I would have to have some sort of money. The guy at the currency exchange window didn’t take cards, but I soon spotted a row of ATMs and pulled 1,500 Macedonian Denar, about 40 bucks. From my quick reading of Wikitravel, I knew that a taxi into the city should only cost 13 dollars or so.

I walked outside, into the heat again, to the taxi rank, and was soon accosted, like flies on rotting meat, by a horde of taxi drivers.  I asked a man with wispy, greasy, graying hair, and a face weathered by decades of cigarettes and too many pulls on a bottle of grain liquor, the cost to the city. “25 Euros,” he responded. “How much is that in Denar?” I responded, knowing very well that 25 Euros was logarithmically more than the 13 I expected to pay.

“1,500 Denar.” All I a had. Fuck.

“I read that it should be 13 dollars, or so,” I tried, but my protests only fueled their numbers. A large man soon descended on me with a laminated price listing – “it’s because of the tax,” he said. “It’s 25 Euros” – “the City is 30 kilometers away!” another added.

I felt I was a high school kid being peer pressured into taking a sip of a vodka cranberry the popular kids had made from their someone’s never-home-lawyer-father’s top shelf liquor. I didn’t, however, see any other way of getting to the city, knew that Skopje had no public transport to the airport. Unless I would want to spend my three days at the airport, I would have to ride with this scumbag. Commenting again on the price, I reluctantly accepted to pay the 40 bucks, and opened the back of the old, dented Mercedes stationwagon. “No, sit up here with me,” the very cheerful sleazebag said. Figuring I could pretty easily overpower the bastard if I tried to pull a weapon on me, I plonked down in the front seat of the hot car, incensed over paying 40 dollars, and not wanting to talk. I just wanted to head to my hotel, and leave this degrading experience behind me. I want to add that as we drove out of the airport, at one point, one side of the road was on fire. I took that as some sort of omen.

But, sadly, he bit into me with the rabidness of a strip club promoter. First he warmed up with asking where I was from, and what I was doing in Skopje, he began his sales pitch. He began with attempting to justify the 25 Euro fare from the airport, claiming that the city levied tax on airport travel (uh huh), and they were required to charge that much. But, of course, as a panacea, were I in need of a taxi in the city, I wouldn’t have to pay any taxes, and well, whaddy know – he would be happy to provide taxi services for me for my entire time in Skopje. He then handed me a map, and asked what I was interested in seeing. I tried to respond in as vague, monosyllabic, clipped answers as possible, but the man was relentless. He truly missed his calling as a cable TV salesman. Our conversation:

“Where would you like to go?”

“Truthfully, I’m not really sure. I just plan on touring the city.”

“Oh, well I can take you around the city. I was born in Macedonia, and know it very well.”

“Yeah, I just arrived and . . . “

“We can even tour other cities. ” He began to point out a route on the map. “We could tour all these cities in one day. Very beautiful. We can rent a rowboat [at this point, it was beginning to sound like a bizarre sexual advance normally found only in Craigslist ads] and tour the caves. I have lived in Macedonia all my life and know it very well.”

“I bet.”

“And here, in this city,” he stabbed a nicotine-stained finger at the map, “is where, uh, I think Alexander the Great’s parents were born.” Wow, buddy. Now, I’m not businessman, and my business sense only extends as far as being able to ascertain the risk/reward ratio of dollar mai-tai nigh, but it seems to me, that if you’re pitching tours of Macedonia, and how well you know the country, you should probably know some information about, oh, I don’t know – the country’s most famous citizen? That omission didn’t seem to deter him though.

“It definitely sounds very good,” I said meekly.

“Yes, I was a translator for the UN. I took tours around there all the time. We even had John F. Kennedy’s sister. I led her on a tour of that mountain,” he mused, pointing in the distance. Uh huh, I thought.

He wouldn’t stop. At this point, I was trying to remember my two disastrous semesters of physics, and try to calculate my angular momentum were I to jump from the moving vehicle. Perhaps I might only crack my skull.

“I was interested in going to Kosovo,” I said, hoping to veer the conversation away from his illustrious country tours. My mistake. I shouldn’t have told him I had any interest – but, truthfully I was somewhat interested in the price.

“Oh, I would have to charge you a special price for that.”

“How much?” I asked.

“.60 cents a kilometer,” he said. “Pristina is 100 kilometers away.” Fantastic. It would cost me 60 euros to check out a city for which I knew I could pay 10 dollars round trip to take a bus. Surrrrre, buddy.

I think he could tell, at this point, I wasn’t buying it. But, like any good jerk in sales, it only intensified his fervor. We were nearing the city at this point (the city was definitely only 15 kilometers away from the airport – not 30, as I had been previously advised. You know how I know? I saw a fucking sign), and he began waving at random features in the distance, and saying he could take me there. The man had me trapped in his care – supplying the scummiest of tactics – the false nicety and care about my well being, in hopes of scraping a buck – well, in this case a very large sum of money from me. I began to wonder just how much I had erred, why I had come to Skopje, and whether the whole country would be replete with people simply trying to take my money. Sadly, it soured the first impression, and then, he managed to make it even worse.

“Where are you staying,” he asked.

“Uh, the Hotel Ani,” I replied, referring to the spot I had researched on teh internet, and would simply hope they had rooms.

“That’s not a good place. I know a better place. My friend runs it. Let me take you there.”

I could see pyrotechnics explode behind my eyes, and as if each of my synapse had been wired with a circuit breaker that had just summarily blown. The scumbag had been trying to coerce me into exorbitantly high priced trips, and now was trying to force me to stay at his friends hotel. Classless – moreover, how dumb did he think I was?

“I got a great rate at the Hotel Ani,” I replied coldly.

“How much?” He asked, cheerfully, oblivious to his own idiocy. “This place is only 50 Euros a night. Free breakfast and internet.”

“The Hotel Ani is 35 Euros a night, and also has breakfast.”

“I don’t think they do.”

“It says on the website.”

“Hmmm, I just toured some Portuguese people who stayed there, and they said they were not satisfied with the service. Plus, the location is bad. Why don’t I take you by the other hotel?”

“I’ll go with the Hotel Ani.” I felt drained – almost violated by his sales tactics. Normally, in a foreign country, when accosted by such lower life forms, trying to effect such sales pitches, one is in an area where they can simply move away. I was trapped.

The ride was ending soon, though. He made sure to drive my by his friend’s hotel for good measure, but soon dropped me at the Hotel Ani. He reminded me to call him, and then, he gladly took my 1500 Denar.

Finally free from his grasp, weary, angered, and feeling cheated, I made my way to the hotel, whose lobby was essentially a bar. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place, until a chubby twenty-something behind the bar with a goatee asked me if I would like to check in. I told him I didn’t have a reservation, which cause a momentary look of panic in his eyes. Oh no, I thought, my own laziness and failure to book a reservation is going to put me onto the Skopje streets, alone, without a map, and force me to find another hotel. I would probably have to trudge back to my taxi drivers’ friends’ place, and pay the 50 Euros a night, and watch the two split the profits over cigars and derrisive guffaws.

The man behind the counter, though, soon lifted my mood. It was not only his jollity, but he worked with a passion, and a fervor – that, even without my reservation, he was going to get me into a hotel room at their hotel. At first, he didn’t seem to have any rooms, and didn’t have any, for sure, on my third night, but then, he shook his head, and said, “I will give you the apartment, at the same rate for the first two nights. Then, the third night, we will see if another room has opened up, or someone has canceled.” Apartment? Same rate? I’m wont to admit it, but, I do enjoy when I am rewarded for my own stupidity. I had, stupidly, failed to book in advance, and now, was being upgraded to a much larger room. It would come in handy for all the, uh, Macedonian women I found in nightclubs.

I took my bags up to my room, which was, as I expected, simple, and typical of all the places I have stayed in Eastern Europe. Apartment, I found out, meant there was a bed upstairs – that I would access by ascending a non-OSHA approved staircase. The room, thankfully, had an air conditioner. The heat the afternoon had been stultifying, and would, as good heat does, linger in the room, unless I had the air conditioner running at full blast. I headed back downstairs to obtain directions to an ATM. Hotel policy dictated that they would not return my passport unless I paid for the room in advance, and they did not take cards. He gave me directions to an ATM, and I took my first steps out on the Skopje streets.

Contrary to what my jerknut taxi driver said, the hotel seemed to be in a wonderful little neighborhood, filled with small shops, meandering streets, with a quick walk to main drag from where I could walk into downtown. Of course, with all of my luck that day, I quickly found the ATM, but it would not take my American card. I turned and walked the other way, in the shimmering heat, hoping to find another ATM, but instead, the other direction only yielded off-track betting parlors, for some reason.

I eventually did find an ATM, a little further in the other direction. I also happened across a cafe that had free wireless. I returned to the hotel, paid my bill, and then walked back to the cafe, enjoyed a Coke Light, and used the wireless. The staff certainly got a kick out of the American using the wireless for an hour and a half.

At that point, I felt much, much better about Skopje. It felt less rough, less unforgiving. Everyone I had met since the taxi driver – well, everyone being the hotel employee and the server at the cafe, was extremely nice.

Back at the hotel, I decided to fight the rapidly pinching jetlag, by heading on a run. The man at the hotel gave me vague directions to a park (he kept advising me to cross the street at the zebras, and though I look stupid here, I actually thought that it must be some sort of Macedonian tradition to have large Zebras erected at various intervals [yes, sometimes my mind works in astonishingly illogical ways]. It took me a while to realize that zebra meant ‘crosswalk’). I left the hotel, clad in running gear (had to rep the UC Berkeley shirt in Skopje), looking extremely stupid, I’m sure, in my sweatband. I crossed the main street, and headed a few blocks down a very tony looking boulevard, filled with street side restaurants and open-air cafes. I decided I would return tomorrow for a few beers, and people watching. I continued down the boulevard, into a residential area, and soon stumbled on a large park, filled with couples on an evening walks, or simply enjoying the warm evening on the benches. After crossing the park, I came across the River Vardar, a rather dubious-green river that bisects the city. An amazing find – perfect for a run. It seemed that all of Skopje was out on the path by the river, riding bikes, walking their dogs, or running. At various mall-like patches of grass on the walk, fitness classes assembled. With the fortress to my left, high on the hill, and the skyline of the city ahead, I ran on the river, heading towards a cotton-candy colored full moon. I ran into the fading light, stopping after a mile and a half, or so, at a basketball court, where I watched some kids play, hoping they would ask me to join. Realizing I play basketball with all the physical prowess of a Greyhound bus, I turned, and ran back, enjoying the uneven surface of the pathway, even with the knowledge that I could easily turn an ankle, relishing at how I needed to duck my head as I crossed under the old stone bridges. I was a Macedonian, at that point, easily assembled into their ranks (well, except for my stupid headband), but I was a member of the city, no longer a tourist, simply another Skopjian on their evening run. I blended, I fit in – I was doing what the locals did – and it filled me with a giddy joy, to have been so easily able to slide into the evening plans of so many Macedonians. The stress of the  25 Euros, the cab driver, the interminable sales pitch – disappeared with the daylight.

After a shower, I headed around the corner, literally 30 seconds away, to a traditional Macedonian restaurant. I wasn’t sure quite what to do – there was no waiter outside, and once I stepped inside, a woman looked at me, and I tried to motion that I wanted to sit, she stood up, went into the kitchen, and never returned. Defeated, but still hungry, I stood outside, grabbed a menu off a table and stood awkwardly in the doorway, hoping that someone would see me and see that I was there to eat, not sell Girl Scout cookies. Eventually, the hip-teenaged waiter spied me, and I asked him if I could sit down. The hipster did not speak a word of English (perhaps, he thought it was ironic not to speak English), and eventually had to motion to another table of a father and son, who graciously acted as my translator, and told me to sit wherever I wanted. Thankfully, they had a non-Cyrillic menu, and when the hipster took my order, I had to literally count the position of the words on the English menu, and match them with the same-numbered line on the Cyrillic menu, taking a while, at times, to match the text, while the hip waiter and I shared a chuckle. I ended up ordering the traditional Macedonian canollini beans baked in a clay pot, a tomato salad, and enthusiastically accepted his offer for bread, but declined his offer for beer, knowing that I planned to pop an Ambien later, and Ambien and alcohol is an absolute no-no.

I read my book while I awaited my order, and soon, the hipster placed a large pot of beans, a salad the size of a small hill, and a basket of toasted bread in front of me. It was truly an excellent, simply meal – really enjoyable, of traditional food. Even better, the bread was spread, I’m guessing, with bacon fat, and yes, while a bit heathenish and artery clogging, when dipped in the beans, it was simply fantastic. The atmosphere of the restaurant was perfect for a late dinner – just a few diners, open-air tables, and lazy, slow service that went wonderfully with a leisurely dinner on a warm night. I didn’t mind – I had a book to read, and my day had markedly improved.

I returned to the hotel, fat, satisfied, and with an excellent impression of Skopje. I watched a Simpsons episode, a movie, Adventureland (brilliant), and went to sleep. I had managed to fight off both jetlag, and a zealous cab driver.

I couldn’t wait to begin exploring for real tomorrow.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 17, 2009
in Trip Reports and Trips/Ventures/Sojourns
. 13 Comments

Trip Report Update – Ahhhhh!

I’m stuck in a land of alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, drawing isomers and naming organic molecules. Yes, I hate to make excuses, but I’m currently contending with my first organic chemistry problem set. I had planned to have the next portion of the trip report up and running tonight, but – well, frankly, didn’t think this set would take this long. I blame my own ignorance – and, perhaps my own confidence that I thought I would be able to proceed quickly.

Tomorrow, dear readers. I promise.

Published
by
G.Ro
on September 16, 2009
in General Blog Blather and Trip Reports
. 2 Comments