14 hours until my first flight.
I'm packed, re-packed, checked, re-checked, and re-checked again.
To quote an old song from an illustrious unknown band, I feel right now like I'm being eaten by butterflies... and I know my nerves are walking...
Might stare at a Kusturica movie until bedtime, see if I can pay attention to anything.
This is the cusp of all I've been working towards for the past year. New journeys, new writings, new people to meet, new stage to perform upon, new chapter to begin. This is my analepsis from the illness of the previous few years. I am ready. Last May I said to the Universe at large, alright I've had enough, what else can you show me? and this is what has been presented:
A (now only) 44-day excursion through a land that has produced far more history than it could consume and I've been hungry for quite some time. I'm more than willing to clean up a few table scraps.
In the next five days I'll be in or pass through four countries, including the first stop in a sequence of namesakes: Bela Crkva. A soon-to-be-met-in-person acquaintance in Serbia has already nicknamed me to his friends: Crkva [that is, Sirk-wha, in simplest form].
These butterflies will settle down once I'm on the plane to Heathrow. And I'll have all but forgotten them when I grab my backpack in the Budapest airport and begin the ground campaign.
I suspect I'll post here again on Wednesday or Thursday.
· • ·
Showing posts with label The Travelogue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Travelogue. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
A brief glance back as I look ahead...
In cleaning and organizing my room today, I came across the journal from my last Slavic journey.
Mostly mundane notes and poetic doggerel, but I mentioned in the journal an email to bid me joyous travels from a fellow named Tercek I know. He offered, as I recorded, Flirt with girls who don't speak English, sleep in seedy hostels, and never ever grow up. Then, as now, I reply to him, Czech, check, and cheque.
First Routine:
Monday 24 May 1pm > Tuesday 25 May 1pm
ILM>PHL>LHR>BUD.
Tuesday 25 May 10pm > Wednesday 26 May 7pm
Budapest > Beograd [night train]
Staying at the 3 Black Catz Hostel in Belgrade for two nights (maybe three if I've got something planned).
In novel terms, the flights and Budapest would be offered as opening prelude; Belgrade is the first chapter.
· • ·
Mostly mundane notes and poetic doggerel, but I mentioned in the journal an email to bid me joyous travels from a fellow named Tercek I know. He offered, as I recorded, Flirt with girls who don't speak English, sleep in seedy hostels, and never ever grow up. Then, as now, I reply to him, Czech, check, and cheque.
First Routine:
Monday 24 May 1pm > Tuesday 25 May 1pm
ILM>PHL>LHR>BUD.
Tuesday 25 May 10pm > Wednesday 26 May 7pm
Budapest > Beograd [night train]
Staying at the 3 Black Catz Hostel in Belgrade for two nights (maybe three if I've got something planned).
In novel terms, the flights and Budapest would be offered as opening prelude; Belgrade is the first chapter.
· • ·
Monday, May 17, 2010
Maps inadequate for the territory...
Not only is travel information about the FYR difficult to come by, but a number of "authoratative" sources outdated or just downright incorrect.
Lonely Planet's website still lists Kosovo as Serbia, and has a grand total of two paragraphs about the entire country (or, in their opinion, region of another country).
Wikitravel has rapidly become the most current source of info on the area, with some singular reports from individuals via CouchSurfing. It seems that travel by bus is quicker than train in a number of locales.
Thanks to the British Airways strike, my flight plans are pushed back from 20 May to 24 May. This effectively eliminates Budapest from a multi-day exploration, but it looks like I'll get into that chain-bridged city at noon on one day and I can take the nighttrain to Beograd the next day, so I'll have about 34 hours to soak in a Turkish bath, eat copious amounts of goulash whilst downing an inordinate amount of Tokaji, and watch the sunset (and the lights of the bridge blink on) from Gellért Hill, and, I suppose, sleeping for a bit.
In Beograd, I'll stay for a few days and, depending on the schedule of others, stay through the weekend or visit Bela Crkva and a friendly CouchSurfing host there. The return to Beograd will conclude meetings with folks there or head on immediately, again, depnding on schedule of others. Ideally, I'd have my meeting with Kusturica following this—which means train/bus down to Mokra Gora and his entho-village near there.
I'll reach Sarajevo once before Vidovdan, but I'll certainly walk the former Appel Quay that morning, something I've had a morbid fascination of doing for more than twenty years.
Destinations without specific timeline:
Sarajevo (first visit)
Mostar
Srebrenica
Višegrad
Jajce
Dubrovnik
Krk
Bar
Prishtina
Like to, but unlikely at this point:
Zagreb
Vukovar
· • ·
Lonely Planet's website still lists Kosovo as Serbia, and has a grand total of two paragraphs about the entire country (or, in their opinion, region of another country).
Wikitravel has rapidly become the most current source of info on the area, with some singular reports from individuals via CouchSurfing. It seems that travel by bus is quicker than train in a number of locales.
Thanks to the British Airways strike, my flight plans are pushed back from 20 May to 24 May. This effectively eliminates Budapest from a multi-day exploration, but it looks like I'll get into that chain-bridged city at noon on one day and I can take the nighttrain to Beograd the next day, so I'll have about 34 hours to soak in a Turkish bath, eat copious amounts of goulash whilst downing an inordinate amount of Tokaji, and watch the sunset (and the lights of the bridge blink on) from Gellért Hill, and, I suppose, sleeping for a bit.
In Beograd, I'll stay for a few days and, depending on the schedule of others, stay through the weekend or visit Bela Crkva and a friendly CouchSurfing host there. The return to Beograd will conclude meetings with folks there or head on immediately, again, depnding on schedule of others. Ideally, I'd have my meeting with Kusturica following this—which means train/bus down to Mokra Gora and his entho-village near there.
I'll reach Sarajevo once before Vidovdan, but I'll certainly walk the former Appel Quay that morning, something I've had a morbid fascination of doing for more than twenty years.
Destinations without specific timeline:
Sarajevo (first visit)
Mostar
Srebrenica
Višegrad
Jajce
Dubrovnik
Krk
Bar
Prishtina
Like to, but unlikely at this point:
Zagreb
Vukovar
· • ·
Monday, April 26, 2010
Preparing ourselves for the journey.
Ordinary facts are arranged within time, strung along its length as on a thread. Yet what is to be done with events that have no place of their own in time: events that have occurred too late, after the whole of time has been distributed, divided, and allotted; events that have been left in the cold, unregistered, hanging in the air, homeless, and errant?
Could it be that time is too narrow for all events?
Could it happen that all the seats within time might have been sold? Worried, we run along the train of events, preparing ourselves for the journey.
—Bruno Schulz
· • ·
Could it be that time is too narrow for all events?
Could it happen that all the seats within time might have been sold? Worried, we run along the train of events, preparing ourselves for the journey.
—Bruno Schulz
· • ·
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Getting close...
I've got a few meetings scheduled in Serbia, Sarajevo, and Croatia. Hoping to have a few more lined up by the time i depart for the mythic realm that was Yugoslavia.
This long weekend break from school, I'll make a trial of packing things for the trip to see where I'm at as far as space and weight goes, continuing reading, set up my profile and mission statement on Couch Surfing, and sketch a geographic itinerary. I've made some orders for books and a couple of items I still need for the Travelogue, but other than that, I need only to stay focused on the remaining weeks of school and the three papers and two exams left this semester. Then three weeks of nothing but work and antici ... pation. :)
50 days from now I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic en route to Heathrow before the immediate hop from there to Budapest.
Life may be sweeter for this, I don't know...
· • ·
This long weekend break from school, I'll make a trial of packing things for the trip to see where I'm at as far as space and weight goes, continuing reading, set up my profile and mission statement on Couch Surfing, and sketch a geographic itinerary. I've made some orders for books and a couple of items I still need for the Travelogue, but other than that, I need only to stay focused on the remaining weeks of school and the three papers and two exams left this semester. Then three weeks of nothing but work and antici ... pation. :)
50 days from now I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic en route to Heathrow before the immediate hop from there to Budapest.
Life may be sweeter for this, I don't know...
· • ·
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Contact. 3... 2... 1...
So I finally got off my electronic missives to a couple of notable persons in the Balkans. Directors Danis Tanović and Emir Kusturica. Incidentally, both are Sarajevans, with one having returned to Sarajevo after the wars and the other relocating in (apparently) more than merely geography from where he was before the wars.
I would feel honored and privalaged if I can even have a correspondence with them, let alone getting to meet and speak with them first-hand.
52 days until I hop on that big ol' jet airliner that will carry me to Far Away.
Excitement is starting to simmer at a mid-boil. :)
· • ·
I would feel honored and privalaged if I can even have a correspondence with them, let alone getting to meet and speak with them first-hand.
52 days until I hop on that big ol' jet airliner that will carry me to Far Away.
Excitement is starting to simmer at a mid-boil. :)
· • ·
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Opening Thoughts
87 days until the Balkan travelogue begins. Starting to get excited about things. Tickets are purchased, for the most part, and I'm making a list of things I'd like to take and such ilk as that. Travel light this time. Last time over, I had just a bit too much and carrying two bags was cumbersome and inconvenient. This time I'm taking a backpack with an empty daypack inside. And no laptop. I'll take the camera and some flash drives, and then use internet cafés to upload photos and transfer copies and post updates. Be a lot easier on the awareness energy and concern with delicacy in carrying the backpack if there's no computer involved.
The trek will begin in Budapest where I hope to score another sweet deal on Tokaji like I had and didn't take advantage of last time, and will ship a case home. Then down to Beograd where I will cross paths with C. Slough and Natasha D. Slough offered to show me around Beograd and Natasha is asking Zoran Živković if I can sit in on a class with them and maybe talk about the wars, if he's willing.
Beyond that there only the most general of plans. Republika Srpska and the museums of atrocity. Sarajevo, where I hope to cross paths with Danis Tanović and Zlatko Dizdarević. Through Mostar to the Hravatska coast. Dubrovnik for as long as I can stand... ;) A place I've often dreamed about.
After ferrys up the coast, meandering to Rijeka, then train to Ljubljana and a flight to Paris. I'll have about 18 hours in the City of Lights, enough time to drink some coffee and pay a vist to Uncle Charles in Montparnasse. The next morning, a Eurostar to London and then the flights back home.
That's when the organization of the collected notes and experience produces a Fellowship essay, a poster project, which is likely to include, on my part, a multimedia production. This trip is also going to furnish me with an English Honors project. I already have an idea as to what I want to that be and accomplish.
87 days. A lot to do before then.
Staying up until 5 am this morning isn't helping to get any of that done... but it is providing the foundations for this chronicle.
Ah. Laku noć.
· • ·
The trek will begin in Budapest where I hope to score another sweet deal on Tokaji like I had and didn't take advantage of last time, and will ship a case home. Then down to Beograd where I will cross paths with C. Slough and Natasha D. Slough offered to show me around Beograd and Natasha is asking Zoran Živković if I can sit in on a class with them and maybe talk about the wars, if he's willing.
Beyond that there only the most general of plans. Republika Srpska and the museums of atrocity. Sarajevo, where I hope to cross paths with Danis Tanović and Zlatko Dizdarević. Through Mostar to the Hravatska coast. Dubrovnik for as long as I can stand... ;) A place I've often dreamed about.
After ferrys up the coast, meandering to Rijeka, then train to Ljubljana and a flight to Paris. I'll have about 18 hours in the City of Lights, enough time to drink some coffee and pay a vist to Uncle Charles in Montparnasse. The next morning, a Eurostar to London and then the flights back home.
That's when the organization of the collected notes and experience produces a Fellowship essay, a poster project, which is likely to include, on my part, a multimedia production. This trip is also going to furnish me with an English Honors project. I already have an idea as to what I want to that be and accomplish.
87 days. A lot to do before then.
Staying up until 5 am this morning isn't helping to get any of that done... but it is providing the foundations for this chronicle.
Ah. Laku noć.
· • ·
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Epigrams
Curious thought yesterday upon things: When I went to Europe before—six-some years ago to Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, and eastern Poland—I began the notebook I carried with a noteable Kafka quote... and, in hindsight, not surprisingly, I encountered a bureaucratic nightmare that twisted into morbid surreality and later found myself unable to escape from Prague when I missed the night train to Frankfurt (and thus my ensuing flight from Amsterdam) by a mere thirty seconds.
I tend to make quite a few mistakes. I try to learn from most of them.
I won't make the same error of intention again.
This summer's journey notebook will likely open with William Earnest Henley's Invictus.
· • ·
I tend to make quite a few mistakes. I try to learn from most of them.
I won't make the same error of intention again.
This summer's journey notebook will likely open with William Earnest Henley's Invictus.
· • ·
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