Can I Drink the Water?

One of the many great things about Central and Eastern Europe is that the water there is potable.  We hadn't really thought about this aspect before planning to travel in this part of the world - but being able to brush teeth and fill up bottles with sink water is really convenient.  Not having to worry about whether or not the food we're eating has been washed or prepared with germ-infested water also reduces illness worries.

We thought it was appropriate to give a shout out to the helpful website www.canidrinkthewater.org - as the site has provided us with much water drinking guidance on our trip.  

Pubs in Prague

We had heard that Prague was beautiful, but we were pleasantly surprised by just how beautiful it really was. Because the city wasn't heavily bombed during World War II, most of its historical architecture is still intact and preserved, which means there are old, ornate buildings and bridges everywhere. It's a gorgeous, walkable city.

Our journey into the Czech Republic from Poland became an unexpected adventure when the conductor on the train we were traveling on refused to accept Polish zloty for our fares. He shamefully kicked us off the train somewhere in rural Czech Republic, which had us a bit panicked until we realized we could purchase tickets with our debit cards at the station where we were abandoned. The silver lining was that our tickets ended up being $110 less this way, as we had already crossed the Czech/Polish border and were not required to pay the commuter tax normally associated with border crossing.

We purchased our cheaper tickets and boarded the next train departing for Prague, getting into the city not much later than initially expected - travel win!

Our favorite Prague moments:

- Visiting the Prague Ice Bar, which is a pub chilled to below freezing and made entirely out of ice. We donned the bar-provided parkas, drank from ice block glasses, and took silly photos of the experience. It was goofy and a lot of fun.

- Sampling as much cheap and delicious beer as possible in the city's numerous outdoor pubs. We especially enjoyed accompanying our drinks with pivni syr - a soft local cheese served with raw onions.

- The anticlimactic wait for the world's oldest working astronomical clock to chime in Old Town. Every hour tourists gather to watch creepy moving sculptures on the clock announce the time and it was an experience to join the crowd for the lackluster show.

Next stop: Budapest, Hungary

Krakow, Poland

Our trip out of Romania was much more comfortable than our trip into Romania thanks to the sleeper car that we secured for ourselves for the train ride to Krakow.  Equipped with A/C, bed linens, and electrical outlets, European sleeper cars are an amazing way to travel.  The rhythmic rocking of the train unexpectedly manages to lull one into a particularly restful sleep.  

Thanks to our sleeper car we arrived in Krakow fairly rested, though in bad need of showers.  We were grateful that our hostel let us check in right away so that we could clean up and start exploring.

We started off learning more about the area we were staying in, which was curiously referred to as the Krakow Ghetto.  It turns out that the neighborhood was first created by the Nazis during World War II to house Polish Jews.  The Ghetto was a prison of sorts, it was adjacent to Oskar Schindler's factory, and surrounded by walls that separated it from the rest of the city.  We found so much of Krakow to be full of sad, but important, Holocaust history like this.

Our favorite moments in Krakow:

- Taking a very somber day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp sites.  From the entrance gates - infamously labeled with the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free) - to the gas chambers, our time at Auschwitz-Birkenau was disturbing and emotional.  We were especially overwhelmed at the enormity of the 425 acre Auschwitz II site, which stretched virtually as far as the eye could see.

- Getting caught in a downpour while visiting Krakow's beautiful Main Square, one of the largest public squares in Europe.  Most of the other tourists cleared out due to the rainfall, but we purchased umbrellas and braved the weather, enjoying the square and the river walk in virtual solitude.

- Drinking local beers at an outdoor pub in the old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz.  Romania didn't have any domestic beer options, so we welcomed the chance to get to sample brews again.  We especially liked the Polish custom of adding raspberry or ginger flavored syrup, which added a pleasant sweetness to the beers.


Next stop: Prague, Czech Republic

Brasov, Romania

Nestled at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, the medieval settlement of Brasov served as a lovely home-base for us in Romania. The city was clean, picturesque, and centrally located, making it easy for us to take a number of day trips into the Transylvania region using the country's surprisingly well developed bus and train system.

Our dollar went unbelievably far in Romania. We stayed in a very comfortable, updated guesthouse - equipped with cable TV, kitchen, and private bath - for less than 90 lei ($25 USD) a night. It ranked among the cheapest and nicest lodging that we've secured to-date. Heavy, delicious, multiple course meals, accompanied by Romanian house wines (a local beer option wasn't available), managed to cost even less than our guesthouse - inclusive of tax and tip!

We were pleasantly surprised by how adequate the tourist infrastructure was, especially considering that Romania doesn't draw a large number of visitors. All in all, things were so comfortable, so wonderful, that it was really difficult to leave!

Our favorite moments in Romania:

- Eating! Like so much of Eastern Europe, Romania's cuisine is a tasty hodge-podge mix of neighboring countries - and with prices so cheap, we were free to liberally sample from menus ("We'll have one of everything!"). Some of our favorites: beet and horseradish salad, Transylvania bread, peasant potatoes, sour soup, sheep cheeses, polenta with cream, and cooked cabbage. About the only thing we missed while we were there was ice cream, as we found Romania's Betty Ice brand to be rather unpalatable.

- Climbing the black tower located outside of the Brasov's city walls for a bird's eye view of the gorgeous Gothic Black Church.

- Making day trips through the countryside to neighboring villages in order to see the historic sites of Bran Castle (more infamously known as Dracula's Castle), Pele's Castle, and the Rasnov Citadel.  We got a kick out of the white font hillside signage (very like the Hollywood sign in California) that marked each town we visited. 


Next stop: Krakow, Poland

Better Luck Next Time, Bucharest

Getting to Bucharest was a 24-hour ordeal involving trains, a bus, and a taxi (proudly only our first marked cab of the trip!), so when we finally arrived, dirty and exhausted, we were especially annoyed to discover our bank had shut off both of our debit cards.

We had been unlucky in attempts to reserve the comfortable sleeper seats for our journey, so by the time we sorted our bank situation out we were pretty grumpy from lack of sleep.

Given our crankiness, our initial lackluster impressions of the drab-looking city, and the fact that many of the other backpackers we had met advised against spending much time in Bucharest anyway, we made the split-second decision to cut our losses in Bucharest and try our luck elsewhere.

Favorite Bucharest moments:

- Elatedly being able to use the ATM and withdraw Romanian lei after the holds on our accounts were removed!

- Being seated in a train car with an eccentric old Romanian woman who didn't speak English but insisted on talking to us. At first, when we didn't understand she just repeated herself over and over, louder and LOUDER until she was yelling. Eventually, she grew frustrated at our inability to comprehend and perhaps our unwillingness to give her further attention (after an hour-or-so of yelling David put in his headphones to drown her out), so she found someone aboard and invited him into our cabin to translate for her. The highlights of her message: David has three girlfriends and will never marry because he values freedom over family, Bill Clinton was a good president to whom she once wrote a letter to, and Romania has a lot of homeless dogs (she began weeping very loudly while talking about the strays). Though we were really tired, this situation was bananas and provided quality entertainment for a few hours on a long train ride.


Next stop: Brasov, Romania

Vrsac, Serbia

The only Belgrade-to-Bucharest ground transit option included an unavoidable layover in a small Serbian city called Vrsac. We thought it would be cool to check out a less crowded part of Serbia, so we actually departed earlier than necessary from Belgrade to extend our time in Vrsac.

This ended up being a mistake, as there was painfully little to see or do in the rural Serbian town. After walking around aimlessly we bought some snacks at Vrsac's box store grocer and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible among the stray dogs at the rundown train station.

Our favorite Vrsac moments:
- Leaving Vrsac.

Next stop: Bucharest, Romania

Biking and Bumming Around Belgrade

After visiting almost all of the countries that once made up Yugoslavia, differences are so apparent that it's a wonder that they were ever a single, united nation at all. Serbia felt like the biggest outlier of the bunch, even using a different written language called Cyrillic.

Serbia has historically been known as a place that doesn't shy from conflict, and Belgrade's violent past is apparent in its architecture - buildings have been damaged throughout the years, in both World Wars, and as recently as 1999 by NATO bombings related to the Kosovo War.

We noticed that Serbians tend to be opinionated and proud people, who take special care in their physical appearance. It's the only place we've been to since leaving North America that has had a semblance of a weight-lifting culture, with a number of gyms, ads for fitness supplements, and an abundance of muscle-heads who look like they could be on Jersey Shore.

We got a good laugh when the cocky, routinely shirtless guy in our hostel motioned to AD's biceps and asked in broken English if Dave worked out (Why yes! Thanks for noticing!).

Our favorite moments in Belgrade:

- Taking a four hour guided bike tour - a great way to get the blood pumping while checking out different parts of the city, including the famous party barges on the Danube, the ugly, communist-era buildings in New Belgrade, and the happy beach goers on Ada island.

- Having a traditional meal and drinking Jelen beers in the quaint cobble stoned Skadarlija district. Our dining companion was an American currently teaching in Tanzania that we befriended. It was refreshing to talk to someone from home while learning more about life in Africa.

- Eating bureks, delicious, fattening, savory pastries purchased from one of the cheap walk-up bakeries scattered throughout the city.

- Molly accidentally being mistaken for a prostitute while sitting in the park across from the bus station. The language barrier and Molly's naivete created a rather comical situation that was awkwardly remedied when AD returned to the scene and wasn't open to bargaining. :)


Next stop: Vrsac, Serbia