John Sigler's Blog

21-22 May 2009, Bratislava, Slovakia

2009-07-09T08:58:00.001-06:00

[a bit backdated]

The train ride from Budapest to Bratislava was nice, following the Danube the whole way. As the Danube was always of major strategic importance the whole way was dotted with various small towns and hilltop castles.

However, once I arrived in Bratislava, I had my first incident with the police anywhere since I left the States. When I got off the train I went over to a little side area and decided to smoke a cigarette. I didn’t see any "No Smoking" signs and there were at least a couple of other cigarette butts there so I figured I was okay. Not so it would seem. A couple Slovakian police came, declared this was a non-smoking area, checked my passport and then fined me €30.00 on the spot. Needless to say, this did not give me a good initial impression of the place.

After that, I had to take a taxi to the hostel (another €14.00) and the hostel itself was already costing €18.00. So by comparison to anywhere else, the prices suddenly skyrocketed. And it wasn’t just a matter of interpretation. Slovakia has just recently dropped its own currency and now uses the Euro specifically, so the prices are really what they say, and those prices aren’t low by eastern standards.

Anyway, I got to my hostel, checked in and set off immediately to go get a haircut, which all went easy enough. After this I went exploring around Bratislava. My train to Brno was to leave early in the morning, so I really only had this one day to check out Bratislava.

After the haircut, I walked through the city center, then up the hill to the castle. The city center at least is all very clean and seems very new to me, very little speaks to its age. Compared to Budapest, Bratislava is certainly a very small and provincial town. For me the center was too clean and too quaint and very obviously grossly over priced. A tourist trap if ever there was one. And, as one would expect in a tourist trap, it was full of tourists, mostly British it would seem.

I took a lot of photos, but otherwise my tour was uneventful. I stopped for a delicious – but overpriced – dinner and then went back to the hostel and went to bed.

I woke up at 6:15 in the morning and was off to get my train to Brno. However, what they neglected to mention was that the train had a three hour layover in Kúty, which was a pain in the ass. This place was really in the middle of nowhere.

Overall, my impression of Slovakia was a bad one. Everywhere else – Romania, Moldova, Hungary, &c. – people at least try to be helpful, but not in Slovakia. In Bratislava the only Slovakian people I actually met were either authorities (police, train people, ticket salespeople, &c.) or service staff catering to tourists. However in Kúty everyone were just normal Slovaks and they aren’t at all friendly. In fact, it seems that they pretty much resent foreigners, so I guess it is no surprise that they just sent a fascist to the European parliament. And it isn’t just a poverty issue. Romania and Moldova are much poorer than Slovakia, but they don’t have the same attitude as most of these people seem to have.

My train on to Brno was delayed (on top of the three hour layover), but it did eventually arrive and I was happy to leave Slovakia, the Czech Republic (next blog) was much nicer.

People I talked to in Brno said that Czechs were cold and indifferent and that Slovaks were friendlier, but that wasn’t my experience at all. In fact my experience was the exact opposite. I got on decently with Czechs, but didn’t care for Slovaks at all, and the feeling was apparently mutual. Slovakia is not much cheaper than other central European destinations and way more expensive than Budapest. Further there isn’t really all that much to see and what there is has been all cleaned up and made “tourist friendly.” I think in the future I’ll just avoid Slovakia all together and if you’re looking for a place to visit in Central Europe, I’d suggest you avoid Slovakia.

19-21 May 2009, Budapest, Hungary

2009-07-09T08:48:00.002-06:00

[a bit back dated]

Virtually everyone I knew in Bucharest had been to Budapest, so now it was my turn and after Sighişoara I was really looking forward to going to a big vibrant city. Small town living is not for me.

The 19^th was really nothing more than the very long and boring train ride from Sighişoara to Budapest. After arriving in Budapest I found my hostel right away (it was very close to the train station, thankfully) and moved in. I did some laundry and played around online to see what I would do on the 20th. Since I only had one full day in Budapest, I decided I wanted to make the most of it.

For a city the size of Budapest it is flatly impossible to get a decent sense of the place on a one day visit, but I'll share my impressions anyway. Budapest is exactly what you would expect from a former capital of a huge empire (the Hapsburgs) and my initial impression is that it is completely comparable to London, just much cheaper.

It is far more international and cosmopolitan than Bucharest. There are far more foreigners of all stripes and I saw the first Spar & Tesco that I've seen since leaving Ireland. At least on this day there seemed to be a lot of Australians and Americans visiting. The language, however, is radically different and frankly it is difficult to make out any words at all; in that respect Romania is better. There are also a lot more definably “trendy” people here – yuppies, punk rockers, hip-hop kids, skaters, and so on – as you would see in the West. Perhaps I have just been in Bucharest for too long, but Budapest seems very Western to me. Budapest reminds me a lot of London, but is also very European, for example there are coats of arms on virtually everything which seems odd in a formerly Stalinist country, where they often went to great pains to “erase” the feudal past.

I set out very early and walked all day. I put on some serious kilometers but got all over the centers of both Buda and Pest (the two cities that make up Budapest), including the castle, which I walked up to. I crossed the Danube about six times on different bridges running all over the place snapping photos (see the MySpace album, there are a lot of photos). Otherwise though, it was all fairly uneventful. I didn't spend much time in any one place.

By the early evening I was both completely exhausted and suffering from a bad sunburn. I found a nice little street cafe in the middle of Buda and decided to stay there for a while and drink beer. I met a few Hungarians, who spoke good English, which was nice. Hungary is one of those places where there is nothing odd about strangers joining you at your table, which is a little odd, but is also great for a foreigner to meet people. I stayed for a few more drinks and then went back to the hostel. As shown in the photos, I got all over the place, but only as a fly by tourist.

The next morning I was off to Bratislava. Everything went well enough until I got to the train station and got the stupid idea to stop and eat a kebab. This took too much time and I found myself in a mad dash to get my big backpack out of left luggage and to get on my train. If I had walked around on the walk ways I would have missed my train, so instead I jumped off the platform – with all my crap – ran in front of one train and managed to jump on my train literally two minutes before it pulled out. I just jumped on whatever car I came to and it turned out to be first class. However there didn’t seem to be many people around so I just took a cabin and settled down. Despite my ticket clearly saying second class, either the ticket people didn’t notice or didn’t care, so I managed to score a free first class ride from Budapest to Bratislava on the 21^st.

17-18 May 2009: Sighişoara, Transylvania, Romania

2009-07-09T08:37:00.001-06:00

[A bit backdated...]

I took a minibus out of Braşov (previous blog) in the early afternoon and arrived in Sighişoara a few hours later. Back in Bucharest I had heard many good things about Sighişoara and wanted to see it for myself.

Sighişoara is very old, originally founded as a Roman town named Castrum Sex (yeah, it doesn't 'sound' like a good name) and by the 12^th century it was a thriving German trading town by the name of Schässburg. This is where, in 1431, Vlad Ţepeş (“Dracula”) was born and there is another statue of him. Sighişoara is much smaller than Braşov, 30,000 as compared to 300,000 people and the town center – the medieval part - is extremely small. However, it is one of the last medieval hill towns in Europe that still serves as a functional town center and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

It is absurdly picturesque and very cool, really like stepping back in time as the city center, perched atop its hill, is still surrounded by its medieval walls, most of its towers and fortifications still stand and inside everything is cobblestone, narrow and winding. Of course there are lots of museums (the most original being the torture museum in the town's old torture chamber), little cafes, and stalls selling tourist crap. Unlike Braşov, that does have some industry, Sighişoara has absolutely nothing but tourism. I met a lot of people from Sighişoara and the surrounding area in Bucharest, people who had moved there because there is no work – and no hope for work – in Sighişoara. There was a definite feel of prosperity in Braşov, but this isn't the case in Sighişoara, at least off-season.

When I first got to town it occurred to me that I had completely neglected to get the directions to my hostel online, which was a pretty big problem. The bus dropped me off at the stop and I had absolutely no idea where to go. I knew my hostel was in the medieval town and that was obvious enough to see on top of the hill, so I went that way. However, it was a hot and sunny and toting almost 50 kilos of shit on my back and going uphill made it quite a task. I stopped at a nice little cafe (Cafe Bar, He. Olbercht #32, at the bottom of the path up to through the medieval walls, with the big Bergenbier umbrellas out front) where everyone was friendly enough for a few beers and to wait for the sun to go down a bit. I asked directions, and though no one knew English, we managed to work it out. The walk up the hill was a real pain with all my stuff, almost as bad as that enormous hill in Terracina back in Italy.

I did finally get to my hostel, settled in, showered, and was pretty happy with the place. They had good stable WiFi that I could access from my room and since I arrived on Monday the place was almost empty. Although I was just paying for a dorm room, for the first night it was all mine, which was nice. I went out and walked around a bit and went back to the cafe for another beer. At the cafe I ran into an older lady – an Australian doctor – that I had seen at the Scottish pub in Braşov, and we chatted a bit, which was also nice. English is not a popular alternative language in Sighişoara. After Romanian, then comes German, then Hungarian; so English-speakers were few and far between. Anyway, the sun was going down and I was pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel, played around online, and went to sleep early.

The next morning – May 18^th – I woke up early and on a mission to explore Sighişoara. The timing was perfect as in Romania virtually all museums and the like are closed on Monday (the day I arrived), so everything was open once I was ready to start exploring. It was a beautiful day out as you can probably tell from some of the photos. Not surprisingly, medieval hill towns are very hilly, so after about six hours of going non-stop, I was about exhausted. This is when most of the photos were taken.

I went back to the cafe for a few beers – which are, like everything else – extremely cheap in Sighişoara if you avoid the few places specifically catering to Western tourists. I was literally paying two lei for a beer (2 RON = 0.5 EUR or about 0.75 USD) which is incredible compared to Bucharest. The problem with the cafe is that they don't serve food (except ice cream, which doesn't go with beer very well); so I went to a pizza place at the bottom of the hill. Again everything was incredibly cheap. I ended up getting quite drunk and stumbling around Sighişoara for a little while longer (without incident), went back to the hostel and passed out.

Sighişoara really is small enough that you can do the basic tourist thing in a day and there isn't much else to do, at least that I am aware of. I saw later in Lonely Planet that there are a couple little clubs catering to tourists, but I totally missed them. It is a very small place and everything dies off pretty early. A nice place to visit, but I would hate living there. Further, since my train to Budapest (next blog) was fairly early, passing out early and getting a good nights sleep was the right thing to do.

Next, Budapest...

14-16 May 2009, Braşov, Transylvania

2009-06-20T09:14:00.000-06:00

[A bit back dated...]

I got to Braşov on the evening of the 14^th after taking a train up from Bucharest. While still in Bucharest I made arrangements online to Couchsurf with Anca, a local journalist in Braşov who shares a flat with her sister in the center of the old town. However, apparently the CS request was made for the 15^th and 16th, which means that I ended up showing up a day earlier than expected. Luckily Anca didn't mind too much and welcomed me into her home.

The next day I was pretty much on my own as Anca and her sister both had to work. When I first set out, I was on a mission to buy a new bag. Since leaving Ireland I had been using a cheap bag that I bought there as a carry-on for airplanes and as a day bag to tote things around with, but by the time I was ready to leave Bucharest, that bag had already pretty much had it. I got the not-so-clever idea to just replace it with another cheap bag that I bought at one of the luggage stalls inside the Gara du Nord Metro stop in Bucharest. However, “cheap” in Ireland and “cheap” in Romania are two different things and the bag I bought started falling apart even before I put anything in it. I didn't really have the time to go buy another one in Bucharest and catch my train, so I went ahead and used it anyway. By the time time the thing was packed, virtually every strap on the thing had popped off and I had to hold it together with two belts and a couple emergency bungie cords. Plainly this wouldn't do. So I set out to find a place to buy a new bag and found an Intersport (a chain of large sporting goods stores in Romania which tend to sell quality name-brand merchandise at decent prices) and invested in a very good small bag. It was 179 RON, but should last indefinitely.

After this, I brought it back to Anca's house and set off to do the touristy stuff in the old city. Braşov is actually a pretty big town, or small city of about 300,000 people, but most of the old medieval city still survives largely untouched – the medieval walls and fortifications, the tiny cobble-stone lanes, and so on – and is very picturesque. Most of the modern city was constructed between 1950 and 1960, when Romania was still firmly pro-Soviet and Braşov was temporarily named Oraşul Stalin. During this period, the government engaged in forced urbanization – pulling in thousands of rural farmers from the country-side and dumping them there to work in factories – but they left most of the old city alone.

The old city was initially founded by the crusading Teutonic Knights and evolved into a German (Saxon) mercantile colony by the 13^th century by the name of Kronstadt. The Germans lived inside the walls, whereas the Romanians lived outside in the Schei quarter, which still has a very unique look and feel quite distinctive from the German town inside the walls. Most of the town's fifteenth century walls – built to defend against Turkish attacks – remain standing and can be seen in some of my photographs. I also took the funicolore (cable car, or incline) up Mount Tâmpa, the small hill/mountain overlooking the old city. This is where the famous Hollywood-style “Brasov” sign is and from the top you can walk to the sign where there is an observation deck. This is where I took the “high up” photographs of Braşov.

[Between 1950 and 1960, during the Oraşul Stalin period and long before the modern sign was built, the name “Oraşul Stalin” was etched into the side of the mountain by means of artistic deforestation.]

[One thing I was wondering while I was exploring the old town is why they built it in the valley instead of on top of Mount Tâmpa, which would plainly be a better position to defend. Later I learned that the original settlement had indeed been built on top of Mount Tâmpa, but in 1458 Vlad Ţepeş (the real “Dracula”) attacked it and had the original settlement completely dismantled and relocated into the valley in 1460. And, true to form, he impaled some 40 German merchants in the process.]

Braşov has a very different feel than Bucharest. Whatever was left of medieval Bucharest was pretty much destroyed first by the Romanian monarchy starting in the nineteenth century and lasting until World War II who sought to “modernize” their capital, then by the Stalinists who sought to remake the capital with their vision, and finally in the post-Stalinist period with modern developers snatching up and developing whatever they can. This is what gives Bucharest its unique feel: part nineteenth-century monarchical (copying the styles prevalent then in Europe), part twentieth-century Stalinist, and part twenty-first century ultra-modern capitalist. The old town of Braşov has none of this, it is very much still a medieval town, though functional today.

It isn't just the town itself that is radically different. The people look different as well; the difference between Wallachia, which is almost exclusively Romanian and Transylvania, which is a complex mix of Romanians, Hungarians, and Germans. Braşov has, for example, a lot more natural blonds which means I don't stick out as dramatically as I do in Bucharest. There are also a lot more big breasted women here, in fact almost all the women here have big tits; I imagine flat-chested women in Braşov have all sorts of complexes about it. Of course, like everywhere in Romania, there are also a noticeable number of Roma (gypsies) as well though they seem better off here than the ones you see in the center of Bucharest. Even the pigeons look different here: in Bucharest they look like pigeons everywhere (Denver, London, where ever), whereas in Braşov they look smaller, darker, and more uniform (and yes, they are pigeons).

After walking around all day and tiring myself out (Braşov is very hilly, so walking it extensively is very tiring) and getting the worst sunburn I've had since I visited Mom in Chattanooga back in September, I decided to take a load off. I just sat down at a little street cafe in Braşov's main thoroughfare and started drinking beer, people watching, and writing in my journal. I decided to do a little stream-of-consciousness thing, just jotting down random thoughts and flash observations, and here they are (though I have edited out some random thoughts, mostly about cute girls and elaborated on a few so people reading this blog know what I am talking about):

A whole lot of girls with big tits here – [I saw] the first overt Neo-Nazi skinhead I have seen since I've been in Romania – [Braşov is] bigger than I expected, but much smaller than Bucharest – [there is] a better mix of young and old here than in the center of Bucharest – prices are noticeably cheaper [in Braşov] – white trash is everywhere: here is a very rough looking woman, wearing a green fluorescent tank-top, who is VERY pregnant lighting a cigarette – [there are] a lot more ugly women here than in Bucharest – a lot more people with tattoos – these quaint little medieval streets must really suck when it rains – I stand out here a little bit, but not like in Bucharest – I am one of four guys sitting by themselves at this cafe drinking beer, though I am he only one writing – there are a lot of German tourists here - a LOT of girls here with big tits – I just ignored a very well dressed guy begging for change – I have just seen the second Segway [the weird two-wheeled mechanized things you stand on and drive around] drive by – it is utterly impossible to guess the age of some of these girls/women – some sort of crazy person is walking down the street screaming “Hallelujah!” making weird noises and dancing around while ranting in Romanian like a lunatic, at least the US doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of thing – I have been, and still am, smoking way too much – [despite it being very hot] a group of Japanese tourists just went by and all of them were wearing heavy jackets, do they sweat or what? - a lot more fat people here than in Bucharest – a lot of people wearing British Premier League shirts & jerseys – quite a few American tourists too - ...

After having a few more beers, it was time to go. Anca had invited me to join her and some friends to go to an international film festival that was happening over the weekend. On this night there were two movies, the first was a Romanian one and the second was an Irish one. I missed the first one but made it the the second one (an Irish film about some musical project that brought Irish Traveler musicians to Mali to play a benefit for NGOs trying to save the Niger River). Along the way to the film festival I bumped into a couple friends from Bucharest, people who were at Goa Festival, which was a bit weird. As it turned out, Anca only stayed at the film festival through the first movie and then left, so we completely missed each other.

As you may know, I like to check out the Irish pub (or failing that, the English one) in whatever city I am in as the pub tends to be a little Western oasis in Eastern Europe where English is accepted, where you're likely to meet other English-speakers (both locals and foreigners) and probably football on television. There is always an Irish or English pub in any city of decent size. I found six (and I know there are more) in Bucharest, one in Constantia, one in Chisinau, and so on. Earlier in the day I passed by Braşov's Irish pub – Kilkenny's – but it was closed for renovation.

After leaving the film festival, I saw “The Auld Scots Pub” directly across the street (Str. Johan Goth, Nr. 2, - at the corner of Str. Johan Goth & Str. A. Hirscher - Braşov, Transilvania, Romania) and this place turned out to be great. Good food, reasonably priced beer, good music, football on the television, excellent service and a great mix of people. This is probably the best pub I have been to in Romania or Moldova. So I got some dinner and started drinking again.

In the process I met a very drunk Dutch guy who was on a mission to get much more drunk and then go clubbing. He had great English and since we were both out to get drunk, we joined forces. After having a few more at the pub, we tracked down where the biggest nightclub was and set off for it. In the process we met up with two South African Jewish guys who were also looking for a place to go, so they joined us as well. We went to a club called Caşo, which was obviously a major club - the place was huge and very well done - but for whatever reason, this night there were no people there. We spent a couple hours there, but finally I just got bored as the place was virtually empty and the only unattached girls were the paid stage dancers.

I left those people at the club and went back to Anca's house and spent the rest of the night hanging out with her, her sister, and three of their friends which was fun. We all finally went to bed at about 6:30 in the morning. It had been a long day.

I woke up at about 2:30 in the afternoon on the 16^th, like everyone else, but this pretty much ruined my original plan to go out to Bran Castle, the most famous of the “fake” Dracula castles in Romania. It is a real castle, but has nothing whatsoever to do with either Vlad Ţepeş (the real “Dracula”) or with Bram Stoker's novel. It was just marketed well. The Romanian courts just gave the castle to Dominic von Hapsburg, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary (a New York-based architect), but not the stuff inside the castle, so right now it is mostly a barren shell of a castle as the Romanian authorities have removed all the old stuff, but the Hapsburg hasn't put in any new stuff yet. Further, the castle is only open until 4:00 PM, so I would not have made it anyway. I still did a little more touring around, I found and photographed the synagogue and a few other odds and ends and then went back to the Scottish pub.

I started watching Premier League football (soccer) as a social thing; everyone in Europe loves football, so it gave me something to chat about at the bar. However, oddly enough – like hockey – I have become a real fan now. Although it became fairly obvious that Chelsea wouldn't win, I was still hoping that Liverpool would beat out Manchester United, as I REALLY don't like them at all. Anyway, on the 16th, I watched the Everton vs. West Ham. game at the pub and had a good time. Interestingly enough, unlike at the street cafe where I was the only one writing, at the pub I was one of three people sitting around writing.

After leaving the pub I went to an Internet cafe to make my arrangements for Sighişoara (next blog) and met up with Anca, Bogdan, Ileana and her boyfriend (I forget his name) and we went back to the film festival. On this day it was a very depressing German movie. On that evening (the 16th), the various museums were having an “open night” so I got to go inside the White Tower (which is allegedly haunted as this is both where the city fathers used to meet but also served as the town torture center for prisoners as well). We went around a bit and then went back to Anca's place. Since I was leaving the next morning, I had a couple beers with everyone and called it a night.

26 MARCH 2009: A prediction about the US economy

2009-03-26T07:39:00.000-06:00

The other day I was asked:

"Shit keeps going down here. Nothing is getting better. Life is becoming miserable. I remember your predictions back in 2005. So what's your prediction for the next year or for America's future."

This is a topic that has come up many times, both here in Romania and from friends back in the states. I was going to write a little essay on the topic, discussing it all in better detail, but never got around to doing so. However, I rather liked my "quick" response to the question above and thought I'd share it on my blog. Feel free to comment or generally make fun of my ideas here... :)

My response to the question above:

"As for the economy, the mess is everywhere of course, but for most of the world it is just another normal recession, those that come and go every few years. However, for the U.S. this is a major “re-adjustment” and nothing will be the same afterwards as US has to get accustomed to living within its means; and those means aren't near as high as many Americans think, so it will be an unpleasant experience. The US has not seen the bottom of this yet, not even close.

In the private sector, the next bubble waiting to pop is the commercial real estate market, i.e. office buildings, store fronts, shopping and strip malls, &c. Before the crisis, more savvy investors didn't invest in residential real estate as investment property, but in commercial property, but they could not have seen how much of a mess the housing real estate would cause. So now that the economy has taken a dramatic downward turn, new businesses aren't starting, small businesses are going under, and large businesses are reducing their operations; meaning that there is no longer a market for all this commercial real estate that has been developed. Now the owners of the commercial real estate are having to pay their bank loans out of their own pockets which even wealthy people can't afford to do for too long. The hope is that the “stimulus” will lead to a bounce back for small and medium range business, BUT the banks still aren't lending for new start-ups and existing businesses are remaining very cautious, so this probably isn't going to pan out. The result: “pop” goes the next bubble which will launch a whole new spiral of action and reaction.

However, of far more importance to the overall global economy and to the US and its ability to maintain the empire is the currency situation. Basically the same Catch-22 that the US had to deal with in 2006, when they started the lowering the interest rate, is still in play now; but the stakes have gone up enormously. Essentially the US is broke, and has been for a long time, the country as a whole – from individual citizens to the Federal government – owe vastly more money then they can hope to make anytime soon. Therefore if the US wants to maintain the status quo or launch new initiatives that cost money, they have to borrow this money. For the government, this basically developed under Reagan & Bush I. What Clinton did to stave off disaster was adopt fiscally prudent measures: balancing the budget, reducing spending, and so on. This encouraged lenders – both domestic institutional investors and international investors – to continue lending. Baby Bush took advantage of this and shot it all to hell, borrowing vastly more than all US governments prior to his combined and essentially channeling all this money off to his friends: Halliburton, Bectel, &c. While this really pissed off the lenders, it also basically tied his successor's hands. The ONLY responsible option Obama had was to follow the Clinton model of financial responsibility in order to assuage the lenders.

Then came the collapse of the residential housing market (thanks to Bush's anti-regulation policies coupled with Republican deregulation in the Congress), the CDOs that bundled all the bad mortgages, and CDSs which insured the CDOs (re: AIG). The crisis meant that Obama had two choices; he could move to help mitigate the effects inside the US (his constituency) or he could move to placate the investors (which enable continued operations of the government and country). He chose to mitigate the domestic effects at the expense of the investors: the stimulus package, continuing Bush's policy of bailing out the banks and insurance companies (and even car companies, which makes no financial sense whatsoever) and so on. To do this, not only could he not follow the Clinton model of fiscal responsibility, quite the opposite, he had to act enormously irresponsible as far as the investors are concerned by following Bush's strategy of massive borrowing.

Well the investors have had it now. With the huge new flood of US Treasuries (gov't debt) being dumped on the market and with interest rates so low; US debt is not only no longer a safe store of value, it is in fact a losing investment because the yield doesn't even cover the natural inflation. To buy US Treasuries is now to throw away money and so people have stopped buying them. This is why you saw the Fed step in last week and buy $300 Billion in US Treasuries, because no one else wants them. However, the Fed by itself doesn't really have the money to do this, so where does it come from? The printing presses, i.e. increasing the money supply, inflation. This in turn devalues the dollar (the day the Fed announced it was buying the Treasuries, the dollar suffered one of its biggest single day drops in years). China and a UN working group in Brussels are already calling for dropping the dollar as the global reserve currency (i.e. the basis of the Bretton Woods II system and the ONLY reason the US has been allowed to live so far above its actual means).

The government still has essentially the same two choices it had before, but now the stakes have gone up dramatically. On the one hand the government can placate investors – both foreign and domestic – by significantly raising interest rates, thereby making the return on US Treasuries a worthy investment and encouraging a huge influx of foreign capital which then fuels the US economy and empowers the government. However, keep in mind that the entire US is also in debt, so increasing interest rates means that your mortgage, your car payment, your credit card bill, and all other debt payments will dramatically increase as well; inevitably resulting in a lot of domestic turmoil (bankruptcies, unemployment, homelessness) and thus political pressure which will lead to Congress (even if there is a Democratic majority) turning against the White House and demanding lower interest rates and probably getting them. [This is basically what Reagan did in 1982, increasing the interest rate and decreasing the money supply, and though it worked, it caused an enormous amount of suffering for poorer Americans; but the situation is VERY different today and the results would be much more dramatic.]

On the other hand, the government can keep interest rates low to placate the American public, but this means that the foreign investors will simply dump the US. The US loses its status as sovereign over the global reserve currency (a fundamental pillar of the empire), it loses its global financial clout and all that entails, and most importantly the government runs out of money. However governments always have an answer to this, specifically they can print more money, i.e. increase the money supply. Since all US debt is denominated in US dollars, inflation would actually be helpful as by decreasing the value of the dollar you decrease the real value of the dollar denominated debt. This is the option I think they will choose.

The “spark” to really get this trend moving will be a recovery in some other relatively stable market somewhere in the world that looks desirable to investors. The one thing that has somewhat held this process in check is that US Treasuries still have the reputation of being a relatively safe “refuge” in times of financial uncertainty. Institutional investors, looking for a “safe” place to put their money – even if there isn't much of a return – still view US Treasuries as such a place. Anyone following the recent Treasuries auctions will notice that virtually all the purchases (excluding the Chinese who have ulterior motives) are now in extremely short-term instruments; which is why the Fed had to step in to purchase allegedly “benchmark” ten year notes. No one wants their money locked into dollars for very long.

It is important to note that I am NOT predicting hyper-inflation, like Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic. The US dollar will always be worth something but it will have to adjust from the being the world's primary reserve currency to just one more benchmark currency, like the Euro, the Pound, the Yen, the yuan, &c. Nevertheless, assuming they do not significantly raise interest rates, it is virtually inevitable that there will be a global “dollar dump” whereby many of the excess dollars held in reserve banks around the world will be dropped (not all, as the dollar will remain one element within a basket of currencies) which will couple with the Fed's increased money production leading to strong inflationary pressure. Nevertheless, the Fed can remove money from the money supply as well, so while I think inflation at somewhere between ten to twenty percent is a given (think of 1979 for example), hyper-inflation isn't in the cards anytime soon.

One big difference domestically between the coming inflation and the last time the US had inflation in this range (the late 1970's) is that today most of America's manufacturing base is gone and virtually everything except food is imported. This reality means that dollar devaluation will have a direct domestic effect in that the cost of most imported goods will rise (the exception being industries that are strictly denominated in dollars, commercial aircraft and many military industries for example). Nevertheless, dramatic price increases within the US for many goods will again lead to domestic political pressure, though probably not on the same level as increasing the rates of debt servicing mentioned previously.

So either way, the US is going to be facing quite a rough patch for the next few years the worst of which has not hit yet and will have to adjust to living somewhat closer to its actual means. This will inevitably be a painful process.

Well, you asked... :)"

24 MARCH 2009: Yet another new plan...

2009-03-26T07:37:00.001-06:00

I know it has been a little while since I last posted anything here, but to be honest, not a lot has changed. Essentially I spend half my time out partying with people and drunk and the other half thinking about the fact that I am spending too much time partying and drunk. All the while making no money whatsoever; so obviously this situation is completely unsustainable.

In my last post I suggested that I might go to the UK – where I know the language – and give some of my entrepreneurial ideas a go there. Realistically though this is a horrible idea just because everything is so much more expensive there. Even living like a total bum in the middle of nowhere (an idea I loathe, knowing how little care for the idea of living in the country or small towns), the money just wouldn't go very far at all. This means I would have to work something out extremely quick; and while this is possible, it would also be a big gamble.

Instead I have opted to take an alternative route, one that I have been thinking about since long before I left the States. That is, to get a British Council recognized TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) International Diploma. Denver actually had one of the few language schools in the States offering the CELTA (the Cambridge University TEFL) and I got all the information and all. However, they didn't have courses that worked with my schedule (leaving the US at the end of August 2008) so I opted not to get the certification as this would have caused a major – and costly – delay in my primary plan. Once I got to Europe, I would think about it now and then, but was having too much fun on my extremely protracted holiday to be bothered (bear in mind, I haven't worked since July 31, 2008).

Anyway, I have now decided it is time to get this done. I still have the money and have found an extremely reputable school in the Czech Republic that is offering a class cycle I can work with. Further, they offer extensive job placement assistance (currently all of their graduates are employed), university recognition (i.e. their courses are recognized as credits towards further education in a myriad of universities around the world), Czech (therefore EU) & Chinese government recognition, and can provide work permits for graduates teaching in the Czech Republic or Slovakia (both EU member states). It will cost me a decent amount of money, but not enough to sink me yet and opens up an entirely new range of opportunities. [Yes, I know that theoretically you can get TEFL jobs without proper certification, but this is very difficult in Europe and to be honest, despite having a decent grasp of the language, I don't really know anything about teaching it to others.]

Today I paid my initial deposit (a fair amount of money in its own right), so I am pretty much “locked in” to this option now. This is probably a good thing since I have had a bitch of a time making up my mind about any possible option up until now; total freedom to go in any direction can be quite daunting. I'll have a lot of online work to do before hand, but the actual classes (and thus my relocation) begin in May and end in June. By all accounts it is a very intensive process, so I'll have to get myself back into the mindset of having some sort of daily structure and the like.

To be honest, it feels nice to have finally made a decision and locked myself into it; I actually have some idea where I will be and what I will be doing in a couple of months. Frankly I'm pretty confident that I can be a decent English teacher for people wanting to learn the language.

Of course this means I still have have about a month and a half of free time. I suspect I'll stay here in Bucharest, but now that it is getting warm I'll probably spend more time exploring around the rest of the country, and probably Moldova and Ukraine as well. Further, I can still work on my other little business ideas and perhaps I'll work something out that I can do on the side. Otherwise, I can still live here without going through too much money until it is time to go to the Czech Republic.

So there it is, my new plan and one that it will cost me a lot of money to get out of at this point.

Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot more to report. I've still been going out a LOT and exploring Bucharest in much greater detail. The other night I was hanging out with some of my Romanian friends for St. Patrick's Day and it seems I know more about cool little places to go than even many people who live here now; at least here in the center of the city. I am, in fact, getting know the city very well and still like it a lot. :)

As for further travel, I think the next place on the list will be Braşov and Sighişoara. We'll see.

10 MARCH 2009: My belated blog about Ireland, London & plans...

2009-03-26T07:33:00.002-06:00

First, a quick excuse for the delay in posting this blog. Once I got back from London, it was time to help my friend here move his hostel two blocks down B-dul Regina Elisabeta. This took a couple of days and seriously highlighted what bad shape I am in. After this I took a couple of days to just be drunk and irresponsible, thus the delay.

Anyway, my original intention was to go visit Paul, Diatou, and the kids for a couple of weeks, change passports, and then come back here. However, by the time I was ready to leave this had changed to visiting the family for about a week, taking a cheap flight to where ever, spending a week there, and then coming back here.

As it turned out, Diatou and the kids went to Sweden and Paul made arrangements with some of his friends to go to London about a week after my arrival. So after getting stuck in Dublin for a night I stayed with Paul for a few days, took care of the things I needed to do there and then we were off to London.

Thanks to the collapse of the British Pound, London was a bit cheaper than it was the last time I was there - again with Paul - about three years ago. Nevertheless, London being one of the world's great cities was still pretty expensive for someone accustomed to Bucharest prices.

The first night in London involved Paul, three of his friends from work (all of whom were decent company) and myself. Being that it was a Wednesday night, many of the clubs were either not open or were closing early. Instead of the original idea of hitting the SoHo clubs, we ended up in Piccadilly Circus and after checking out one other club we ended up in "Metra," the same club Paul and I went to last time.

At this place, Paul and his mates did not hook up at all and I only hooked up with an unattractive girl (but she was unique in that she was the only deaf girl I have ever picked up and made out with). Not surprisingly, everyone decided to leave soon enough.

The problem was that most places weren't too keen on letting in a group of five guys. So after wondering about a bit and getting turned away from a couple of places, Paul's friends decided we should go to a strip club; the one place that stays open all night and welcomes groups of guys with money in their pockets.

So off to the strip club we went. What was readily apparent was that it was a slow night at the club. When we walked in there was all of two other guys in the place and literally 40 strippers looking to make some cash. So they swarmed us in a way that would be hard to describe in a blog. There was some sort of rule where they were not allowed to sit with us until we ordered drinks. After some deliberation we bought a grossly overpriced bottle of vodka and the second the bottle touched the table we each had at least two strippers on our laps and the night began.

To give credit where credit is due, these girls did their job very well; we all went away feeling good and with empty pockets. I met a couple Romanian girls there who were in London to make some money, but I only bought personal dances from an American and a British girl. Everyone had their preferences and went away happy.

After leaving the club we bought some more liquor and went back to the hotel. The plan was to stay awake through the night as Paul and his friends had an agenda (shopping in the now cheap London) and then a fairly early flight. As it turned out, I was the only one to stay awake (thanks to ephedrine). The next morning we went to my hostel (as I was staying in London for two more nights) to drop off my stuff and went to some shithole for breakfast.

Paul and friends went to go take care of their shopping, but I was exhausted and went back to my hostel. The idea was to sleep for a while and then go back out on Thursday night. But I couldn't do it. After showering and laying for about an hour unable to sleep (thanks to ephedrine), I got back up and decided to go explore London, doing all the touristy (see all the photos) that I never got around to doing previously.

In the process I also walked into and temporarily joined a Tamil protest against the Sri Lankan government (a very just cause) and came across two separate groups of pro-Palestinian activists (I donated a few Pounds & picked up some literature). I also stumbled across the Socialist Bookshop, where I bought a couple small booklets about post-Trotsky Trotskyism (a current interest of mine).

After a long day of walking around London on zero sleep I was completely exhausted and slept for 14 hours. Once I got up and ready I spent a bit more time exploring (and photographing) London and went back. The hostel was connected to a bar (Belushi's) and I ended up drinking all night with the hostel people and hooking up with a cute - but weird - Dutch girl. Only getting a bit of sleep, soon it was time to head back to Bucharest.

As noted previously, after getting back it was time to help my friend move his business and I have done very little since. Now I am getting back to work.

The fact is that I am still not making money and this is getting to be a problem. I am not broke or desperate yet, but my current lifestyle is completely unsustainable. The primary problem - the primary stumbling block I keep running into at every turn - here in Romania is the language barrier. Every idea I have to make money ultimately comes down to being literate and fluent in Romanian and I am VERY far from being either. There are ways around this of course, like having a reliable Romanian partner, but this hasn't really worked out to my satisfaction.

I have not completely given up, in fact I intend to really throw myself into what ideas and opportunities I do have right now. However, if I don't have something relatively tangible going by the first week of April, I think I am going to make a radical change.

My money is still in Euros and now that that British currency has collapsed the UK is no longer cost prohibitive for me. More importantly, I know the language and can make my own arrangements with no middlemen, translations, or multi-lingual interpretations required. All said, getting legal residency in Romania isn't much easier than doing it in the UK (both are very difficult), but at least there I can function without the language barrier and with a bit more cultural insight. Further, I get more time on a single visa - six months instead of three - per visit per passport. If I am going to be illegal and operating through a domestic company to handle all my affairs - my plan here - I can do this in the UK as well, and with less difficulty. London, of course, is still way too expensive but the UK is a big place and I suspect the money will go far enough in Scotland or Wales for me to start generating some independently.

With the collapse of the British currency and the incontestable fact that the recession there still has some way to go before it bottoms out; the UK might be a better bet. Especially since I will be able to directly make my own arrangements with people without stumbling over every word and its effective meaning. If I can actually talk to people, understand what they say (and mean) in response, and can read & write the legal language, I think I stand a much better chance of being successful.

So, though I haven't given up on this place yet - and yes, I still love Romania - I do think if I don't have better prospects by the end of this month I am going to try the UK. The money won't go as far, but hopefully far enough for me to set up alternative revenue streams. We'll See.

11 FEB 2009: Art Openings, Melotron, & Chişinău

2009-03-26T07:30:00.002-06:00

It has been a little while since my last blog and I have received a few little notes asking what I've been up to, so here goes...

... the quick answer being, not much. My overall situation is still pretty much the same as it was the last time I blogged. After a couple weeks back in the hostel, I moved in with the owner for a few days and now I have a new single room near Amzei. The new place is a vast improvement over my previous single room: the price is reasonable, I have full internet access 24/7, it is clean and
centrally located.

I am still not actually making any money, but this is mostly my own fault as I've been being lazy and irresponsible. My two little side projects for making some money online are still in the works, however the best opportunity on the table right now is going into the hostel business up north in Braşov. In that this is essentially an extension of a pre-existing successful business it should work out okay. This will be me, another American guy, and two Romanian guys, including the owner of the hostel in Bucharest. There is a lot to do here, but we're all leaving Bucharest until the start of March, so this is when we'll get to work on this in earnest.

The scheme to get long-term residency here didn't work out and although there are options available, they will cost money. In the interim (between now and making enough money to take care of things better) however, I have worked out an alternative scheme that should allow me to stay here legally without having a problem.

Otherwise, I've just been going out a lot, drinking, and leading a grossly irresponsible lifestyle. I am still pretty much in holiday/vacation mode, but that should ending once I get back here at the start of March. I'm still doing the Goa thing as well and have been hooking up with some very good stuff to go with that, so obviously I'm still happy.

The other day I went to an art opening for Paul Radulescu - http://www.paulradulescu.net/ - with a German girl that was staying at the hostel. This is the second opening I've attended since I came here, the first being a photography exhibit about the street kids here in Bucharest with a
group of French girls, also from the hostel.

I also went to my first concert here in Bucharest, Melotron - http://www.melotron.de/ - who I have been a fan of for some time. Going to the venue early to get tickets – my American friend here also went – I got to meet the band which was very cool. Apparently they were supposed to play in Denver back in December but were unable to get the proper visas, so we joked about me having to fly all the way to Romania to get to see them. In the same vein, I'll be going to a similar show on February
14, DarkFest Romania:

Obviously, contrary to my earlier comments, I found the Bucharest Goth/EBM scene: http://www.lux-noctis.ro

Last Wednesday, my friend Calin and I decided to go visit Chişinău, Moldova and stayed until Saturday. We took a thirteen hour sleeper train going there which turned out to be a lot of fun. Calin met a Moldovan friend of his on the same train (an actor and fellow Goa enthusiast) and we ended up drinking all night in the restaurant/bar car. We also met a few other people who hung out as well, including a couple Dutch guys who were staying in the same hostel that we were. We arrived early in the morning and went and dropped our stuff off at the hostel and walked around a bit.

Despite the impression that Moldova is just a detached part of Romania, in reality it is a VERY different place. Moldova was, of course, a constituent republic of the old Soviet Union and this is very apparent. Virtually everyone there still speaks Russian – though most have at least some Romanian as well – and the whole feel of the place is different. The people are more direct, but usually in a friendly way, and the women are absolutely stunning.

Calin and the two dutch guys were mostly just about clubbing, so this is mostly what we did. After walking around the center a bit and getting a meal, we went back to the hostel and took a nap. It was hard to sleep on the train as we crossed the border at about 4:00 in the morning and had to endure two passport inspections (Romania on the way out, Moldova on the way in) and all the racket of changing the wheel carriages on the train, since the Soviet rail lines are wider than the European ones (a measure taken to upset European invaders).

The first night we went to a club spinning retro – half western, half eastern – which was great. The Moldovans party better than the Romanians in Bucharest. I personally didn't do very well with the women – entirely my own fault – but had a lot of fun anyway. I left earlier than the others went to sleep earlier. This allowed me to wake up earlier and set out on my own to explore more of the city. Clubbing is fine and all, but when visiting a new city in a new country I do actually want to see more than just the night clubs. The day was lovely and I spent several hours just wondering around checking out the place, this is where the photos came from. I did get stopped by a cop – all decked out in very Soviet looking gear – but he was just bumming a cigarette from me, so nothing to worry about. According to Lonely Planet, the cops there still extort bribes from people there often – especially drivers - but luckily that wasn't the case.

After going back and taking a nap, it was time to go back out again. I hooked up with Calin and the Dutch guys and we went to the Irish pub in Chişinău for dinner. While there we ended up bumping into a large group of Americans, mostly Peace Corp volunteers, which was about the only other foreigners we met there. After which it was back out to the clubs. the second club wasn't as good as the first one, but it was still pretty good, I met a few girls and had a pretty good time.

The next morning we all left, this time taking a 10 hour minibus ride back to Bucharest. The bus was both quicker and cheaper, but the train was much more comfortable. I DEFINITLY intend to go back to Chişinău, though next time I am going to try to go via CouchSurfing, so I can meet more local people and hopefully get to see more of the city.

Anyway, my future plans have changed a little bit. Instead of going to Dohab in the Sinai (Egypt) I am now going directly back to Ireland on Feb. 17 to visit Paul & Diatou and take care of some things I need to do there. I'll probably only visit for about a week and then I'll just fly to where ever is cheap for about a week and then it is back to Bucharest and getting to work.

So far, so good!

It was a gray and rainy day...

2009-01-16T12:10:00.002-07:00

[Now that ranks right up there with “A dark and stormy night...”] ... when my friend Daniel and I decided to go visit Constanta on the Black Sea coast. For a history buff, Constanta is great: as the Greek city of Tomis, Jason and the Argonauts fled here and it is here where Augustus exiled Ovid (where he eventually died, his tomb being on a small island off the coast that we didn't visit) after the conspiracy was discovered. Later, Emperor Constantine rebuilt and heavily fortified the city as part of the external defense of his new city of Constantinople, renaming it after his sister, thus “Constanta.”

We took the bus from Bucharest which was a fairly bleak experience. Think of the-middle-of-nowhere Kansas or Nebraska in the winter: flat, gray, fallow fields as far as the eye can see only occasionally broken up by the sight of a patch of trees, a grain silo, or some high-tension power lines. Luckily though, the trip only took about three hours, so it wasn't quite as bad as driving through Kansas.

When we arrived we only had about three to four hours of sunlight left and I was on a mission to see what I could before it got dark. So from the bus station we walked directly down the B-dul Ferdinand to the Black Sea and then spent the rest of daylight exploring the old quarter of the city. I particularly liked the monument to Ovid and the mosque (the largest mosque in Romania and the seat of the Mufti of Romania). Like Bucharest, it was an odd and eclectic mix of old and new, interspersed with the ubiquitous Stalinist housing blocks.

One thing that struck me as odd about it was the lack of development. The coast to both the north and south of Constanta is dominated by large beach resorts which are booming non-stop during the summer and have been the beneficiaries of a LOT of western investment. Constanta is the primary transit link to all these resorts, so one would think that the city center would reflect this. However, in the old quarter at least, there are many derelict buildings (even right on the sea side), the side walks are horrible (I mean really horrible, to the point of being dangerous), and there was a general sense of neglect. Odder still, several of the derelict buildings are formidable structures that were obviously not built later than the 1960s and probably even later; so they weren't just ancient wrecks. A friend had asked me to look into investment opportunities on the coast and I responded by saying that this wasn't likely since so much western investment had already flooded into the area, but apparently this money mostly went to the resorts and not so much to the city; so it would seem I was wrong, there probably is a lot of room for investment within Constanta itself.

My friend Daniel, not being a history buff and being a great lover of Italy (which has a better climate in January and greater antiquity as it never fell into the hands of Stalinist urban planners) was not particularly impressed and was probably a bit annoyed at me running around everywhere. The highlight for him was a walk we took along the beach.

As it began to get dark we stopped at a sport bar/restaurant called “Champs” and had a few pints and then made a mad dash to the bus station where we caught the return bus at the very last possible moment.

One of the problems Romania has is with stray dogs. Ceausescu's forced urbanization efforts resulted in thousands of dogs – originally pets and guard dogs – being abandoned and now they are everywhere. In the center of Bucharest they have put forth a conscious effort to get rid of many of these dogs, but elsewhere – including near Gara du Nord, the main train station, where I have been staying – packs of wild dogs are all over the place. These strays are completely wild, and this time of year are cold and hungry (therefore a bit touchy), and they do bite people. The most famous story is of a Japanese man who was bitten getting off a bus and somehow the dog got an important artery and the man died. While that obviously isn't common, getting bitten by these dogs apparently is, especially late at night in the little side alleys.

About a week ago, I was stumbling home about half drunk from the bar at about 3:00 AM and going through a little side alley that is a short cut to the place I was staying and ran into a pack of dogs. They all started barking and growling and bearing their teeth, i.e. they were getting ready to bite me. Not knowing what else to do, I just started growling back at them as I walked and this seemed to work; they backed off though they continued surrounding me and barking. I made it back safe and sound. During our walk along the beach in Constanta, we also ran into a pack of wild dogs that started barking and the like, but these seemed less aggressive than the ones I bumped into in the alley way, they seemed more surprised to see us than angry about it. Daniel saw my hesitation once we were surrounded by the dogs (memories of my earlier experience still fresh) and didn't know what to make of it until I explained (and no, I didn't growl at them this second time).

Anyway, I enjoyed Constanta and intend to go back sometime to visit the museums and Greco-Roman ruins more comprehensively.

In other news, my initial Ebay scheme didn't work out very well, but that is okay; I'll try to work it out. In the meantime, I have a new scheme that should cover my day-to-day expenses well enough and will hopefully have that in place quickly. For the overall business and resettlement planning, I have not made a lot of headway largely because this room I am at doesn't have internet and this is vital for almost everything I need to do here. Therefore, in part to save money and in part because there is constant internet access, I am going to move back to the hostel I was staying at before I got this room. Not to mention I am friends with the owner of the hostel and if I have to spend money on housing I would rather it go to someone I know and like than to others. There is the possibility of getting a room with a couple friends here, but that is just a possibility and in the meantime, I think the hostel would be more conductive to getting things done. If nothing else, the hostel is closer to the center so there is less of a chance of dog attack as I stumble around through dark alleys in the dark and drunk. :)

If you look online you can see that it has been quite cold here recently, but what is odd is that I think my reaction to this was at least in part just psychological. When it first got cold, I was quite miserable with it, however the other day I looked online at the temperatures in Denver and it was even colder there (lower highs and lower lows), meaning even if I had stayed at home I still would be in the same cold. After making this discovery the cold here didn't seem so bad and hasn't ever since. Go figure. I suspect it has something to do with my own preconceived notions; when I think of Eastern Europe, I think it must be absurdly cold in winter (and it is further north, look at Kiev or Moscow) and this preconceived idea made the cold here seem worse than it really was. Therefore once I put it in context, it didn't seem as bad.

The gear that I bought, mostly in Ireland, before setting out has also been quite good, money well spent. The boots are brilliant and although the rain pants and sailing coat lack insulation, they are waterproof and warm up quickly as an outer layer, so it hasn't been too bad. What sucks is that I have this constant backpacker look instead of being my usual reasonably well dressed self. It was worse in Italy where everyone was very stylish, but even here most people are reasonably well dressed as well – especially the women – so I hate having the whole backpacker look all the time. However, until I stabilize my financial situation and start generating at least some income, I can't really go buying clothes (even harder since I know I have two large chests of decent clothes sitting in Ireland waiting for me).

As of right now, and knowing this could change at anytime, the basic plan is to stay here through mid to late February (leaving a little leeway on my 90 day limit), then go someplace very warm and cheap where I can defrost for about a week. I am thinking that would like to visit Sharm el-Shaykh in the Sinai or maybe northern Lebanon. After this, I intend to go visit Paul & Diatou in Ireland for a couple weeks (I do miss them, and good Senegalese spicy rice, there is nothing hot & spicy here at all) and then either head to Chisinau, Moldova – where I can stay in a Romanian-speaking environment – or to Turkey until it is good for me return to Romania. It also seems that some good friends from the States might be going to Oslo in July and I still want to go and visit Svalbard which involves catching a flight from Oslo, so I may be there briefly in the summer. There is also the possibility that once I leave here I may go and volunteer in Palestine; I've already asked a couple people about volunteer opportunities and it seems there are plenty but this is a more remote possibility.

Despite wild dogs, an overpriced room, and worries over making some money; I still like Bucharest a lot and am still convinced this is the right place to be to get my EU residency. Even with bad days I still wake up in the morning without thinking there is any place I'd rather be and as I poke my head out the window of my little room to smoke a cigarette occasionally I still have the thought: “I am in fucking Bucharest and this is cool!”

Salaam – Peace – Shalom, John in Bucharest

P.S. If you have the opportunity, please post a comment online, donate a few dollars to UNRWA, say a prayer, or do something on behalf of the people being mass murdered in Gaza.

A few comments about Bucureşti

2008-12-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I posted a blog, so I think it is time to share a few more observations about the city that I've been in for about a month now.

First and foremost, keep in mind that these are just my observations and that my experience here is very limited. To date, I've only been in Bucharest, no where else in the country; though after New Years I want to go up to Brasov. Further, the people I have been associating with are no, by any definition, your "average" Romanians. Basically the people I've primarily associated fall into three general groups: young, university-educated Romanians that I met through CouchSurfing; people I met through the hostel I was at that include many other foreigners and a few well-traveled and worldly Romanians; and the people I met at the British/Irish expat bars, most of whom are older, professional and view Romanian society from a strictly outsider perspective (and a few Romanians who happen to like associating with this crowd). So obviously my observations are bound to be biased and grossly incomplete.

When I first got here, it was just before National Day, December 1, (think of our July 4) so my initial impression was of national flags hanging from every open place and serious nationalism. Though this initial impression was mistaken, being just a matter of my timing, most Romanians do seem fairly nationalist in outlook. This does not seem to translate into anti-foreign sentiment – in fact most Romanians I've met seem happy when Westerners at least take an active interest in their country and culture – but finds expression in a general disdain for national minorities (the Hungarians in the north that refuse to learn Romanian & the Gypsies especially). I've never been to the north and know nothing about the Hungarians. As for the Gypsies, I firmly reject the notion that everyone that belongs to a particular group must by definition be the same; nevertheless I do grant that I can understand the anti-Gypsy sentiment. This is just because at least here in Bucharest the only Gypsies you see are the beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and con men that are undeniably out to rip you off one way or another. In a way it almost makes me want to volunteer with one of the NGOs that work with the Roma (the proper name for the Gypsy people) just to see how "the other half" of this community lives. All of this notwithstanding, realistically I avoid the Gypsies on the street just as vigorously as most Romanians do.

Romanians here tend to take a lot of pride in their country and its accomplishments and like to show foreigners the highlights; but at the same time they are by far the harshest critics of the place. If you were to just listen to Romanians talk about the city of Bucharest in particular, you would think it was the worst place in the world; but realistically none of the problems they point out are unique to here and Bucharest certainly isn't as bad a place as say Mexico City or even Detroit. In a way I suspect this harsh criticism is almost preemptive: "I know you are going to be critical, so I'll be more critical before you can say a word; that way we don't have to talk about it." Fair enough, but it also gets somewhat oppressive after a while; as far as I can tell (and again, perhaps I am horribly wrong here) the place just isn't that bad. The actual problems cited – government corruption, bad contractors never getting anything done, the infrastructure being too weak to support the population, crazy traffic, taxi drivers out to rip you off, and so on – just are not unique to Bucharest at all. Perhaps in some instances the problems are more pronounced here than in many others places, but not unique.

By EU standards, the country is still quite poor and the average wage is something like €200.00 per month. Further there is a very clear wealth divide between the "haves" and "have nots" with only a limited middle class. The country has fallen prey to a lot of Western speculators, which has only undermined over all confidence in Romania's ability to function within the EU framework. There is also a quite understandable (in view of historical circumstances) lack of a solid "work ethic." By this I don't mean to suggest that they are lazy or anything like this, it is just they don't seem to have much appreciation for many work-related matters that are simply absolute necessities in many Western places: showing up to work on time (or at all), actually getting the job done, the idea of customer service as a device for keeping your business (and thus your job) up and running against the competition, and so on. In view of the Stalinist past here – which isn't all that long ago – all of this is understandable and I also think it will all fade away as all these young, university-educated young people take over the place in the next decade or so.

Despite the very real problems, I am also very optimistic about how things will improve here.

In the near term, I think the global recession and chaos in the financial markets will help Romania. Since much of the financial sector here is dominated by foreign institutions, many of the domestic institutions weren't really tied into the financial mess in the West and are in reasonable shape. In the West, the big money is now looking for places to invest in tangibles since the financial markets are inevitably going to be extremely volatile for some time to come and Romania (with its EU membership) looks like a good option in many respects. Further, much of the "brain drain" Romania suffered – its best and brightest fleeing abroad for higher wages – is likely to reverse now that times are tough (and getting tougher) in the West and they have the option of returning home with their Western money in hand and doing very well for themselves here. Finally, the EU has made it clear that it will be investing a lot here – especially in infrastructure and governance (think anti-corruption & best practices) – to get the place up to standard by the time Romania is scheduled to fully integrate into the Schengen Zone in 2011. In fact, i know from the expat places the EU is already doing this and a lot more will be coming. Look at the wonders the EU did for Ireland; Romania is on the short list to be the next major beneficiary.

In the long term, people here really want things to improve and these young university graduates – most of whom are presently under 24 or so – are the ones who are going to make this happen. They were born and raised in the post-Stalinist era, they take seriously the notion that they can accomplish whatever they want, and in a way it almost seems like they want to show their parents that another world is indeed possible, at least here. There is a degree of energy and enthusiasm about these kids that I just don't see in the States or elsewhere and I think this will pay off in the end. They're still 20 years off taking over the place, but I think they're changing it already and I think they'll continue to do so.

So where do I fit into all of this? Frankly, at this point I don't. Nevertheless I am optimistic about the future of this place and honestly believe that the country is just too populous, too large, and too important within the framework of the EU to fail; and rest assured almost every Romanian will laugh in your face if you say this to them BUT seem to like to hear it anyway. I see – perhaps foolishly – Bucharest as an ocean of energy and vibrancy, my goal is to catch a wave on it that I can ride through getting my legal EU permanent residency. Unlike places in the West, there is still a lot of opportunity for the creative entrepreneur here, many niches that haven't been filled. I am exploring these niches to see what, if anything I can do.

Perhaps everything I wrote here is completely wrong and I'll take it all back at some point in the future, but this is how I see things here now.

11 DEC 2008: Finally getting to work in Bucharest

2008-12-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

One of the main things I needed before I could settle down and get to work here in Bucharest was a single room at a reasonable rate and yesterday I moved in. Prior to this I was living in a hostel which was a lot of fun - drinking all the time, meeting interesting people from everywhere, and so on - but I couldn't really get to work on exploring whether or not Romania is the place to stay. Living out of a backpack in a nearly constant party environment is fun, but not conductive to getting anything done.

Yesterday I moved into a single room which is costing €22.50 per night. This is more than I was hoping to pay and the place is a total shithole with a vile stench, but it meets my minimal requirements and I couldn't find anything else at the same price. It is easy to get a place for a couple of weeks and easy to get one for a year; but very difficult to get one for a couple of months. I have made it known to people that I've met that I am looking for a better alternative, but until then I have something of a "home" as it were in Bucharest.

On the upside I've met other people doing things similar to me, and in January we will probably be making a "visa run" to get new visas so we're here legally.

Now I have to get work on learning the language and setting up basic revenue streams. Today I bought an English-Romanian/Romanian-English dictionary and a textbook for English-speakers trying to learn Romanian and soon I'll be enrolling in a Romanian class. Listening to the language, it isn't so radically different (meaning no completely alien sounds and the like) and I am optimistic that I'll be able to get some of the basics down fairly quickly.

So far, I still really like Bucharest and haven't run into any serious problems. The city is safer than most of this size, even including cities in the States, and though corruption is rife, at least so far I haven't had any problems. Otherwise, the problems are the same you find in all big cities, which I know how to deal with easy enough.

Today I visited the Curtea Veche, or remains of the 15th century palace of Vlad Tepes, the Prince of Wallachia known as "Dracula" ("Dracula" meaning the son of Vlad "Dracul" [Vlad the Dragon]; thus Vlad "Baby Dragon" = "Dracula"). Now that I have a room, I'll start traveling around to other parts of the country like Transylvania and the like; though it is a bit rough in winter.

So far so good...

4 DEC 2008: So far so good in Bucharest

2008-12-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've been in Bucharest for about six days now and so far things have been going pretty good. It is a very interesting town. Structurally it is a weird mix of old 19^th & early 20^th century neo-classical buildings, Stalinist housing blocks, a new ultra-modern buildings.

I have met a number of Romanian people through CouchSurfing, having attended their December 1^st meeting, a number of English & Irish folks through the big expat pub here in town, as well as a number of interesting people (Romanians, French, Germans, and even a guy from Tennessee) through the hostel I am staying at.

My primary goal at this point is to secure a room or studio for a couple months, but this is proving problematic. It is easy to get a room for a week or so and easy to get one for a year or more, but very hard to get one just for a couple months. One of my Romanian friends is helping to look around for me, and a French guy has a friend whose roommate just left so it is possible I may be able to work something out like this. But otherwise, I'll just have to go with a hotel, which is very expensive. Regardless, I really can't wait around much longer in this respect. Three months seems like a long time, but it isn't really and I seriously need to get to work on the language. As it is, I'm still very much on holiday, drinking way too much and blowing money.

I actually took a lot more photos of Bucharest, but this time of year the city is very foggy and hazy so many of photos turned out bad. I'll get some more in the future.

28 NOV 2008: Naples is a great city!

2008-11-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

Napoli turned out to be a lot of fun. Rome is a more conventional international city that has compromised much of its own personality o accommodate the standards and expectations of visitors (tourists, business people, &c.); whereas Naples remains very much its own place. The center at least, where I spent most of my time, is very much university town. Very vibrant, full of smartly-dressed and attractive people, and non-stop events (concerts, plays, film screenings and political events [like a major Palestine conference on the 28th]). The center is full of bars, cafes, piazzas, and little independent shops. The traffic is utterly chaotic and takes some getting used to, for example if you want to cross the street – any street – you really do have to just walk out into oncoming traffic and hope they stop (they do).

Even though I wasn't able to get hosted through CouchSurfing at first (I did later) and got a very cheap room for my first five days, I did get to meet a lot of great people through a CS event that happened my second day in town. This made an enormous difference. Though I am sure I would have had a good time just by myself, meeting cool people that live here and really love the city and have an endless supply of ideas of interesting things to do made my time there better in every respect.

I guess there is a big NATO base here with a lot of Americans at it, but knowing my views on things, I pretty much avoided that crowd. The last thing I want to do is travel half way around the world to hang out with a bunch of US soldiers and sailors. I did meet a few Americans – three to be precise – that I enjoyed hanging out with; but for the most part I hung around with British and Italian people.

Naples is a very ancient city and you could easily spend a month here visiting interesting sites. But assuming you want to get a feel for the place, you have to take it slower and spend at least some time doing as the people who live here do. he one thing that takes a bit of getting used to is that all the restaurants and the like close in the afternoon and then re-open in the evening, everyone eats much later than I am used to. I still managed to do some touristy things: we went to the top of Mt. Vesuvius (the volcano that over looks the city), visited a number of the major castles and piazzas, went to Pompei (the ancient Roman city that was buried by an eruption of Vesuvius and has now been largely excavated) and did the tour of the ancient Greek and Roman water system deep (30 meters, so about 100 ft) under the city. [There are a LOT of photos in my Napoli folder in MySpace]

Through Dario, the Italian couchsurfer who hosted me the last three days, I got to sample some of the uniquely Neapolitan things like their excellent pizza (which has virtually nothing in common with what we call "pizza" in the States) and Lemonciello (a sweet, lemon liquor).

When I originally wrote this I was on the train back to Rome to catch my flight to Bucharest, but I wasn't able to actually type it up and upload it until now, my first full day in Bucharest.

20 NOV 2008: Finally in Napoli and my rethinking...

2008-11-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

So I finally made it to Napoli, though that turned out to be a bit of a hassle. First the train that brought me to Terracina did go on to Napoli, so I had to take a bus to another nearby town, then a train to Formia, and then a different train to Napoli. I could have taken a different bus which would have brought me here, but my plan for a place to stay was based on arriving at the Napoli Centrale train station, not whatever bus station was there. However, I did in fact make it as was inevitable; there for a few I was considering taking the train back to Roma and then taking another one back to Napoli as a last resort.

Anyway, the place I was intending to stay at wouldn't open the door, so I found another place for about the same price. Not exactly nice per se, but it meets all my basic requirements. I did some walking around town this evening, but I think it would be better to turn in early so I can explore around during the daylight tomorrow morning. Plus, apparently CNN has a English-language channel here, or at least it is in English right now, which is very cool. This is the first time I've caught the news since I left Ireland. Also, tomorrow night there is a CouchSurfing event here in town (eating, of all things, Mexican food), so I'll get to meet some local people and other visitors.

Okay, so now my rethinking of things. I am in fact having a lot of fun, but I am tearing through the money and not really staying in anyone place long enough to make any money, which is a problem. The larger goal is permanent resettlement over here, preferably in Romania or Bulgaria, as if I can get legal permanent residency in either country before 2011 that is my back door into Europe as both these countries are scheduled to be integrated into the Schengen Zone at that time. However, in order to make this work, I need some basic functional language skills to get by. Even here in Italy, where the language is similar enough I can get by as a tourist, it would be a real pain in the ass to try to get a job or make a business arrangement. This means it would be even more difficult in Romania or Bulgaria, where the language is a lot more difficult.

So what I am thinking is that I should not spend all my money on holiday touring around the Mediterranean, but should go ahead to Romania and Bulgaria to explore the opportunities there. I'm thinking it can't be too difficult to find some intensive "learn Romanian in Bucharest" and "learn Bulgarian in Sofia" program run by some university or language school, but it would probably cost a decent chunk of money. If I can go there and find such a program, hopefully I would learn enough of the language to operate, plus the money would go further as it is cheaper, and I would be there long enough to find some commodities I can sell online to create at least a little income. Of course I still only get 90 days in either country, so obviously my days of travel aren't over, but at least I would be taking care of important things while I still have some money.

The next question is, which country should I go to first, Romania or Bulgaria? Bulgaria is much cheaper, but it is also much more Eastern (for example, Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic script, so there is a steeper learning curve) and with 20% of its population being Roma (Gypsies), there is some question as whether the country will ever be integrated into Schengen (the last thing almost all of Europe wants is a new and massive Gypsy population with legal permission to travel throughout the borderless zone). On the other hand, my money will go further in Bulgaria (I've checked into it and can even afford a nice little house there) and since Bulgaria is more Eastern, there is probably a LOT of opportunity for someone with excellent English and functional Bulgarian and they are somewhat behind the curve with respect to the internet, so I think my website skills might be marketable there.

Romania seems more likely to be integrated into Schengen on schedule (2011), is fairly pro-western in outlook and even American-friendly. While their language is still a lot different, there are a lot more English-speakers there (many Romanians that fled to the West and then returned after the fall of their Stalinist regimes), so I think I would be more likely to find some good language courses. The money would not go as far in Romania, but still would go further than it will in most places in Europe. However, most of the above relates primary to Bucharest, but Romania is a very large country with a weak infrastructure (meaning a lot of development will inevitably be in the works as it integrates into the EU), so with basic language skills there might be good opportunities in other parts of the country. Wouldn't it be cool to have a nice little house in the middle of the Transylvanian Carpathians? hee hee.

So what do you guys think? Romania or Bulgaria? The only viable alternative is to direct all my efforts toward English-speaking Europe: the UK or Ireland. Paul has already so much as said that he'd help me in Ireland, but he's already helping a lot and I don't want to take too much advantage of that. Not to mention, I think I'd rather live in the UK, but my money wouldn't go very far there at all and they make it particularly difficult to immigrate there legally. I don't even where I would start trying to work that out, without going back to my employer scheme (setting up my own company and then inviting myself to work there).

Here in a couple days, I am going to do some research.

> Which is cheaper to get to from Napoli, Bucharest or Sofia?

> Which is warmer right now?

> Which country – Romania or Bulgaria – has easier immigration standards?

> Which country – Romania or Bulgaria – has a more business friendly legal regime?

> Is there an intensive language course available that can be completed in under 90 days (my legal visa limit) and doesn't cost too much?

I think these will make the case on which one to go to first.

I really am having fun just going around around traveling, but without generating any money at all virtually everything I am doing is being jaded by money concerns. Just the thought that I am spending significant amounts of money and not generating any at all is taking some of the fun out of it. If I go ahead and start laying the groundwork for my permanent resettlement, I still get the same benefits (going to new places, meeting new people, learning new cultures); but then I also have a mission, or a point.

This is my rethinking of things. Any comments?

18 NOV 2008: Terracina, Italy

2008-11-30T04:29:00.000-07:00

So today I went exploring around Terracina, which is a very nice little town that is over seen by an ancient pagan temple:

Last night after getting in, I had quite a run around arranging a place to stay, so after finding one I went to the local pub - a cool place called La Pinta - and had a LOT of drinks, went back and crashed.

So this morning, after walking around the town, getting some food, and visiting the remains of the town's Roman Forum, I walked up the hill to visit the temple.

There are a lot more photos from Terracina in My Photos section. I had a great day.

The boats going out to Ponza - see my earlier post - only run on the weekends and since I don't want to spend more time here, I am off to Naples tomorrow.

Even though I am having fun and have not run into any major problems, I am also not making any money but tearing through it pretty quickly. This is leading to something of a rethink about what I am doing. But more on that a bit later...

17 NOV 2008: Off to Terracina...

2008-11-30T04:28:00.000-07:00

... today. I wanted to stop in some small place between Roma & Napoli and by most accounts, Terracina is a good place to do so. As it stands right now (and of course this could change any time I feel like it), the idea is to go from Terracina to the island of Ponza, then to Ventotene (anoher island), and then straight into Napoli.

14 NOV 2008: Went to see the ruins & joined a protest in Rome

2008-11-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

Today the plan was to go see all the Roman ruins in the middle of the old city of Rome. So I left nice and early and while going past the Termini down the Via Cavour I kept running into assorted feeder marches of protesters, who were joining into an absolutely enormous protest near the Colosseum. This was clearly a Left'wing protest, though it took me a few minutes of making out what the signs were saying to figure out that the key issue was attempts by the right-wing government to cut educational spending so as to privatize more of Italy's public sector (sound familiar?). Apparently all the students and teachers are on strike today. Click here for a good article about the background to the situation, and click here to read about today's protest.

I took a lot of video, but have had a bitch of a time getting this blog posted and lost most of it in the process (Internet Cafe's in Rome suck). So there is one short video uploaded and more pictures than I'm posting here (see in My Photos). There was a large Palestine contigent, but that is one of the videos I lost...

And yes, I did make it to the Roman ruins (more pictures in My Photos)...

So, I had a good time today. I need to get some food...

12 NOV 2008: Now I’m barely in Rome...

2008-11-30T04:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I am now in Rome, but things didn't work out exactly as planned.

For reasons that I won't discuss (and no, nothing to do with me), I ended up taking the bus from Tralee to Cork, and then flying to Rome. All of this went quite smoothly. However, for the same reasons that I took the bus, I wasn't able to do my homework last night. I guess that is a lesson in waiting for the last minute to do things, but oh well.

The point is once I arrived in Rome I had absolutely no idea what to do. As it was, I didn't arrive until 7:30 so it was already dark and of course I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Anyway, I dropped a LOT of money for a nice hotel close to the airport and am now sitting in their bar, drinking grossly overpriced Heineken. However, the main thing I needed to do was sit down, hop online, and work out a plan; which I have now done.

Tomorrow, I'll go get a much more reasonably priced place in the City Centre. I'm thinking I'll only spend a few days in Rome - which is absolutely full of Americans - and then start working my way south. This is my first major foray on my own, in a place that doesn't speak English, and so on. I found fun club things to do here in Rome, but I'm not totally sure I even want to do that; we'll see.

[After four beers on a fairly empty stomach - I'm used to Diatou feeding me big meals, and today I've eaten nothing more than a Panini - I'm think I'm about set.]

10 NOV 2008: Quick update...

2008-11-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I'm getting ready to head off to Italy on Wednesday. The couchsurfing thing didn't work out which really sucks since this will be my first foray into a totally non-English speaking country. I did, however, find the right clubs to go to in Rome, which is good. I'm sure I'll manage.

The basic outline is to spend a bit of time in Rome and then head further south for the winter. Once I get tired of Italy, I'll hop over to Greece, and then when I have to leave Schengen, to Turkey. I'm looking to spend as much time as I can in the East, where my re-settlement opportunities are better and the money goes farther.

On Wednesday, Paul is giving me a ride to Cork (where my flights leaves from) and as long as nothing utterly horrible happens, I shouldn't be back to Ireland until the Spring at the earliest.

The next blog post should be from Rome, Italy.

Not to mention it is MUCH warmer there. The formula for converting celsius is
T x 2 + 32 (where T is the celsius temperature). So here in Ireland it is averaging about 9 [7 x 2 = 14 + 32 = 46F] whereas in Rome it is averaging 18 [18 x 2 = 36 + 32 = 68F].

5 NOV 2008: Last night I got back to Tralee and watched the election...

2008-11-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

... on CNN. The Obama sweep went pretty much as I expected and have been saying since before I left the States. I still believe beyond anything else, it was the debates that killed McCain; just as soon as you put the two together - side-by-side - and look and listen to them both, there really is no choice. Obama totally outclasses McCain at every level. Of course, now this that Obama has won the next big question is whether it actually amounts to anything. Frankly I have no idea what he could do to even start getting us out of all the messes Bush has put us into. I suppose we'll see.

In other election news:

My Mom lost her bid for the Georgia State legislature, but that isn't a big srprise since she lives in a die-hard right-wing conservative area and ran as a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, she pulled in 30% of the vote, which is respectable. For more: Click Here.

Outspoken anti-war Congressman Dennis Kucinich managed to hang on to his seat in Congress for Ohio, which is a good thing. That presimably means that indicting Bush for his many crimes is still on the table in Congress. For more: Click Here.

The Al Franken race is Minnesota is, as of this time, still too close to call. FOX is calling it for Coleman, but that's FOX and no one with a lick of sense considers that a reliable source of news. All the other sources are still saying it is too close and there will probably be a recount.

Another thing that was on my nerves was the way that the MSM was describing Colorado as a "battleground state" and suggesting that it would be very close. This is because I didn't see this at all and predicted an Obama sweep and it looks like I was right about that. The Denver Post is reporting 52.6% to 45% in favor of Obama, Udall got in, and that evil bitch Marilyn Musgrave lost her seat thereby removing a major stain on COlorado. For more: Click Here. Luckily it also seems that the "right-to-work" anti-labor union amendment is about to fail (Amendment 47), the radical anti-choice amendment (Amendment 48) looks to have lost very heavily, and the anti-Affirmative Action amendment is still in the air.

And I don't see anything yet about how the Green Party fared.

Anyway, I'll post another blog later today describing in detail my trip to Navan & Dublin.

4 NOV 2008: My trip to Navan & Dublin

2008-11-10T13:28:00.001-07:00

The whole idea behind this trip was just something of a practice run before setting off to the Continent next week and everything went brilliantly.

The first day was just a long – almost all day – bus trip to the other side of the country:

The plan was to make it to Navan and hook up with a Couchsurfer guy there that was going to let me crash at his place during my visit. The only real snag on this day is that once I got to Dublin, it occurred to me that although I had given Cormac my mobile number, I hadn't got his so had no way to contact him once in Navan. Luckily, as it turned out, he realized he hadn't given me his number and sent me a text five minutes after getting off the bus. So everything went well.

We went back to his place, had a couple beers, and both went to sleep early. Cormac had to work the next day and I was just tired from the trip.

The next day I set out with the idea of taking the bus down to Tara, but it was such a nice clear sunny day I decided to walk it instead. It took a couple hours, but was a nice walk. I wanted to see Tara in the day light, before the druids did their fire thing that evening (see previous posts).

One thing that I didn't realize is that the Mound of Hostages, one of the most prominent features at Tara was a megalithic chamber that was open...

I was also a bit surprised to see another standing marker next to the Stone of Destiny (another megalithic standing stone, that was used in the coronation of the ancient Irish kings and would supposedly "sing" when the pagan gods approved of the new king). What was it? A memorial put up by the IRA at Tara in 1938…

After visiting the site in daylight for a couple of hours, I decided to go waking to other sites in the area, like Rath Maeve and the castle at Dunsany. As it was starting to get dark – and cold – I stopped for a bite to eat and went back to Tara.

Unlike last year, when apparently the revival of the Beacon Fire ritual at Tara took the authorities by surprise, one thing I noticed from the outset was that there were large signs all over Tara saying that you could not start fires there anymore. So this already made me suspect that maybe it wouldn't be a big event like it was last year. As the sun went down over Tara, there were a few very small groups of people who obviously knew one another and were up to something, however, a few arsonists on a hill isn't what I had in mind. Further, they all had cars, so if the idea was to just light the fires and leave, I'd be stuck there. I waited until about an hour after dark just to see if all of a sudden a lot more people were going to show up, however, when that didn't happen I walked back to Navan. That was the whole "Halloween was a bust" post earlier. If they had the ritual on the Hill, either it was about ten people in the dark or it happened much later at night.

I had a few drinks with Cormac and went to bed early. Oh well.

The next day I hopped the bus from Navan to Dublin, for the whole goth/EBM night thing I talked about earlier. I found the club easy enough as it was close to the bus station and got a room in a hostel (a whole lot of Americans and Germans there) right around the corner. The rest of the day I just walked around Dublin, which is a big city, just exploring around. I came back to my room and took a nap. Like all of Ireland, Dublin is absurdly expensive, just moreso. So instead of hanging out in the pubs before the club, I just got a bottle of vodka, mixed it with some apple juice, and wondered around some more.

By the time I went to the club – about 11:15 – I was already half tanked which is a good thing since the drinks at the club were even more expensive than in the pubs. The prices really were ridiculous, but that didn't stop me from buying more. The venue was very small – think of maybe the basement level of Milk in Denver – and most people didn't show up until after midnight. Some people I was talking to said this was particularly slow, and probably because it was Halloween weekend and everyone was probably at private parties or broke.

On the upside, the music was excellent, and since the goth/EBM thing is definitely not big in Ireland a number of the other people there were foreigners too. I ended dancing with and then hanging out with a girl from Argentina and had a good time despite the fact that we were both entirely too drunk. It was a good night.

The next day I explored a lot more Dublin; Dublin Castle, the Guinness Brewery, and so on. Then I took the train out to Leixlip where Cormac was, and we went back to Navan. We went out to a couple pubs and had a few pints and that was that.

The last day, as mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to make it out to Newgrange, near Slane. Again it was a lovely day so I decided to walk it and at Cormac's suggestion took the Ramparts walk which is incredibly picturesque:

The castle is Dunmoe Castle, held by the D'Arcy family and burned down in 1799.

The problem was that after I left the Ramparts walk, I didn't know which way to go and went the long way around to the town of Slane. However, from there it was another 10 km to Newgrange, and there was no way I could make it (without calling a taxi) before it closed. So instead I stayed in Slane, ate dinner and had a lot of pints. Later, since it was cold and I was drunk, I did give in and called a taxi back to Cormac's place. There Cormac, his roommate Sara, and I all had some drinks into the morning having a good time talking all manner of stuff.

The next day – yesterday – I got the bus back to Tralee and watched the election (see my earlier post).

So all said it was a successful trial run. I got to do at least some of what I intended, met some cool people (Cormac & Sara in Navan, and people at the club in Dublin), and have a better sense of what I need to take with me as I set off next week.

28 OCT 2008: Heading off to Rome...

2008-11-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yet again another change of plan. Instead of staying in Ireland, where everything is so absurdly expensive, I'm flying out of Cork to Rome on November 12. The flight is bought and paid for and cost like E30.00, so less than four packs of cigarettes here. I'm still going to Navan for the thing at Tara on Thursday; but I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to make it to Ireland's only regular goth/EBM night in Dublin on the 1st. However, I might be able to make it back to Dublin on the 8th and then go directly from there to Cork.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Rome and will do some looking around on Couchsurfing to see if I can get a place to stay. But either way, it should be LOT cheaper for everything there so I'm not too worried about it. Not to mention Italy is close to a number of places to hop out of Schengen.

Everything is still good...

2008-10-22T16:05:00.001-06:00

All said, things are going as planned. I'm off to the Hill of Tara on the 30th, as every Samhain (October 31, Halloween) the "druids" light fires on all the hilltops of Tara, and then I'll stay on that side of the island for about another week. A fellow in couchsurfing is putting me up for a few days in Navan, and then I may go down to Dublin for a few days.

However, all this resolution and stuff isn't preventing me from doing stupid things either. One of the things I've invested in is a good pair of walking/hiking boots, a good rain coat, and rain pants. So, to test all of this out, I got the stupid idea of taking the first leg of the Dingle Way Trail:

It was lightly raining with a brisk breeze, but didn't seem all that bad so I took off. In Blennerville, everything still seemed to be okay. I even caught an Irish rainbow:

The goal was to make it to an old abandoned stone village and the ruin of an ancient oratory, not far from the town of Camp. What I didn't realize is that the path is about 600m (or about 1800ft) higher than sea level (where we are at), that it was along the sides of mountains and that the "trail" was mostly just a line of loose stones, that of course are very slippery when wet and even more unstable since the ground turned to mud. Further, the direction I was going put a constant wind (hard enough to blow you over), that was carrying a LOT of rain, directly in my face the whole time. So what would have been maybe a four hour hike in good conditions turned into a gruelling six hour death march (or so it seemed at least). Further, I didn't realize it would be 20km long...

Yes, I did make it to the spooky abandoned village and the oratory...

Further, my boots are great, despite the march and being brand new I didn't even get a blister. The rain gear was all pretty good as well. I walked back to Tralee along the main road (in the dark).

17 October 2008: Today I rode to the top of a Irish mountain

2008-10-17T14:59:00.000-06:00

As part of my whole practice thing, today the goal was to go to the top of one of the nearby mountains, the one with all the radio antennas on it.

So first I rode out to the sea, then through Blennerville, a little hamlet outside of Tralee, and the the rest of the way it was just very small, narrow country roads. Paul showed me the route before I left, but my only real land mark affirming that I was on the right road was Scotia's Grave.

As some of you probably know, what is today Scotland was actually called Pictland previously, being inhabited by Picts. The Picts were native Celtic Britons that never fell under Roman rule. [Pop culture refernce: think of Pink Floyd's song "Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict" off Umma Gumma]. Anyway, the Scots were Irish invaders that began colonizing south western Pictland and soon took over the whole damn place; thus Scotland.

Although in reality this process took several centuries, in Irish legend the invaders were led by one Queen Scotia, who is apparently supposed to be buried here in Kerry for some reason. So as Scotia's Grave was my one big land mark, I was happy see the sign for it:

So I opted to pull off and take a look, but just saw a whole lot of nothing:

Where's Scotia - to the left:

Where's Scotia - to the right:

I spent a few minutes looking around for some trace, but saw nothing and knowing that I had to make it to the top of the mountain, I just moved on. Later I learned that you have to hike down some ravine and then it isn't all that once there. However, no knowing what to look for or where to look, I could have spent the rest of the day wandering around aimlessly; so I made the right decision.

And off I went the rest of the way up the mountain. I just kept going until the road turned downward, going down the otherside. There was a small parking area there where I took a break before coming back to Tralee:

The radio towers from the top of the mountain:

The view south, toward Killarney was simply breathtaking and this crappy photo does it no justice at all:

And Tralee, where I had come from, from the top of the mountain:

I am very tired and going to sleep now...

12 October 2008: Resolution on the bike thing

2008-10-17T14:58:00.000-06:00

So today I went riding again and although I didn't really do much better than before, I did make up my mind about whether or not to go biking or walking. The determining factor was that it became patently obvious that I was using an entirely different set of muscles for cycling than I was for walking. If I am walking and just get disgusted with it, I am more or less just stuck where I am. However, if I'm cycling and just get disgusted with it – as happened the other day – then I can always just hop off the bike and walk it. While walking the bicycle sort of sucks, I don't think it would suck any worse than walking with a backpack full of crap. So, yes, I am cycling with the proviso that I reserve the right to just hop off and walk the bike when I feel like it.

Anyway, on 3 November, they are doing some event at Tara and I want to be there. From here to Dublin is about 200 miles and I think I want to give myself some leeway so I'm going to set off about 13 days in advance. If I were walking, the walk would take about 10 days averaging 20 miles a day. With the bike, it should be much quicker; but I've never been to that part of Ireland anyway, so if I'm there earlier and for a longer time, nothing much is lost.

So now the goal is to get my bike and all ready to go. There are certainly some things I need to do and to learn, but I have a couple weeks so we'll see.

Tomorrow is the big moving day, so that should be long and hard. So it is to bed early tonight and up early tomorrow.

10 October 2008: Walking to Ballyheigue

2008-10-17T14:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I walked up to Ballyheigue and back as promised, so about 26 miles. It was a fairly gray and overcast day, but the walk to was pleasant enough, although it took four hours. Part of that was because I took the wrong road and added about 6 kilometers to the walk that was uncalled for. The walk back, however, was a total pain in the ass. The wind was blowing off the sea directly into my face and then the rain started. However I think it would have been much better had I had been wearing proper walking shoes or boots and had some rain gear on. As it was, it totally sucked. However, it would have sucked just as much on a bicycle.

The real downside to the walking was it was just so damn slow. Paul said he could do the same trip, following the same route, in about two hours instead of four, so in half the time. This I believe.

On the upside though, the walking was completely stress free. That is, it was comfortable – but slow.

So I am going to go back to the bicycle for a couple of days before making up my mind on which way to go. We'll see.

8 October 2008: Is cycling the best way?

2008-10-17T14:56:00.000-06:00

The second trip out to Fenit was completely shitty. Early in the morning it was raining, not a little Denver shower but full on lashing, this meant the trip started off badly. Then after the rain slackened off some, the wind started blowing making it a real pain in the ass to cycle. Of course, due to the time of year I knew this was coming and frankly there is a lot more of this to come, but if I were on foot I'd still be moving forward, whereas with the bike it was a remarkable pain in the ass.

After I made it to Fenit, it was still cold and windy; so I wanted to stop in at this little hotel bar to get a drink and a bite to eat, but there was no where to chain the bike, like no where at all, I just set off coming back. Along the way I came across a pretty nice restaurant/pub called "The Tankard" (that later I learned that Paul had worked at as head chef for about a year). So I chained up the bike, went in, got a pint and some food. While there, I met a couple Germans who were travelling around backpacking (walking, hitchhiking, and so on). As we were chatting, they were telling me all about their trip and adventures and it sounded exactly like what I'd like to be doing.

Finally I got back to Paul's place very tired and discouraged.

My original idea was to be backpacking anyway. However, talked me into going on a cycle, pointing out – very accurately – that it is much faster. An hour of good cycling can be on par with a day of walking. Further, you can carry a lot more stuff with you much easier. As an extension of the speed, it is also likely to be cheaper since I would be more inclined to just zip through places along the way, whereas on foot I'd be more inclined to stop.

On the down side, I am not a very confident bicyclist; I only barely know what the hell I am doing and don't consider fun at all, but gruelling work. This would obviously improve with more practice. There is also a significant learning curve involved with cycling; how to fix anything and everything that can – and probably will – go wrong with the bike. Though I have no doubt I could learn all of this. And finally there is the whole security issue. A backpack I can take almost anywhere I can go, and can easily find a place to lock it up when I don't want to carry it; whereas for a fully loaded bike with all the bags and things, basically it seems like it would be an incredible pain in the ass any time I am not actively cycling. This completely defeats the purpose of the trip since cycling isn't the goal, but just a mode of transportation to get me to where I want to be.

Backpacking – walking, hitchhiking, and the occasional train – would be slower and probably more expensive (just more opportunities to stop and thus spend money), BUT I know how to do it, am comfortable with it, and assuming the weather isn't horrible (which would suck on foot or a bike) I enjoy doing it. Further, there is no major learning curve, just some little bits here and there. And most importantly, security would be much less of a concern; basically I can brink a backpack with me anywhere I go, and can find lockers in bus/train stations to lock it up easy enough.

So what I am going to do is just go walking tomorrow and see how it goes. Maybe I'll find it as miserable as biking was yesterday, or maybe not. I just want to see how it goes.

What do you people think?

Oh, and by the way, while I was walking my bike on a stretch coming back from Fenit (because of the wind), I came across this old cemetery that I thought some of my gothy friends might like. I thought it was cool…

6 October 2008: Yes, I made it to Fenit and back...

2008-10-17T14:55:00.000-06:00

Yes, I made it to Finti and back as planned. However, it took way too long, so I need much more practice. I'll be off again tomorrow. And I'l bring my real camera as the views off the Fenit pier of Tralee Bay were simply stunning this morning. If it is like that again tomorrow I'll share on the blog.

5 October 2008: To Fenit or bust...

2008-10-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I've been dicking around with my new bicycle and not doing what I need to be doing, specifically getting in a lot of road time. But realistically, I don't have the time for this shit, so tomorrow I'm cycling to Fenit no matter what. It simply has to be done.

25 September 2008: Irish Republican swag straight from Ireland

2008-10-17T14:50:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, I am in Ireland for a few months so of course I found the local IRA/Sinn Fein shop. If you are interested in some Irish Republican swag direct from County Kerry, just let me know. I already put up a few tee-shirts on Ebay at cost (what I paid for them) if interested:

Irish Republican T-shirt: Fenians - Erin Go Bragh 1858-2008

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-T-shirt-Fenians-Erin-Go-Bragh-1858_W0QQitemZ180293379581QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293379581&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Irish Republican T-shirt: IRA - Undefeated and Unbowed

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-T-shirt-IRA-Undefeated-and-Unbowed_W0QQitemZ180293396233QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293396233&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Irish Republican T-shirt: University of Freedom

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-T-shirt-University-of-Freedom_W0QQitemZ180293397043QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293397043&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Irish Republican T-shirt: Rise of the Provisionals

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-T-shirt-Rise-of-the-Provisionals_W0QQitemZ180293397960QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293397960&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Irish Republican T-shirt: Euskal Herria (Basque) / Ireland Unity

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-T-shirt-Euskal-Herria-Ireland-Unity_W0QQitemZ180293399682QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293399682&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Irish Republican Stickers: IRA & Sinn Fein

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irish-Republican-Stickers-IRA-Sinn-Fein_W0QQitemZ180293405042QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180293405042&_trkparms=72%3A1207|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

15 SEPT 2008 - A Nigerian birthday in Ireland

2008-09-15T10:11:00.001-06:00

Last night, we all – Paul, Diatou, Ethen and me – all went to a birthday party for a little girl here in town, but as Diatou warned, an African children's party is just as much a party for the adults. At first it was just a lot of kids playing with balloons and having a good time while most of the adults sat on the side eating and the like.

However, as the night progressed and the beer, cider, and vodka began flowing, it evolved into a party for the grown ups. We had a very drunk Russian guy singing, loud music playing, a lot of the adults out dancing, with a lot of little kids running around going crazy with balloons and kazoos. It was a lot fun!

And, oddly enough, it was in Ireland where I came across my first can of Arabic Coca-Cola, which I found novel enough to photograph.

As the party progressed, we bought a few "take aways" – beers you take from the pub – and went over to the home of one of Paul's Nigerian friends and had a very drunken discussion of a new Bollywood/Nollywood movie that apparently Paul and his friend has been working on for sometime.

It was a fun night in Tralee, though probably not what most people would expect...

Day 4 (14 Sept 08) - A quick whirlwind tour of central Ireland

2008-09-15T10:08:00.001-06:00

So not long after my last post Paul called and we were off. Off where, you ask? Apparently it was time to take a massive eight-hour tour of Ireland. Paul's friends Chris and Jennifer were in town from Tennessee and rode up to Shannon to pick me up and off we went further north, into County Clare.

The first destination was the famous Cliffs of Moher.

Atop the cliffs it was so incredibly windy you could lean forward and the wind would hold you up. This was quite a change from Georgia & Tennessee; but felt quite nice after being cooped up in the airplane for the trip over.

After this we headed off through The Burren, stopping along the way in Kinvara for a bite to eat and a pint.

Then we were off to Lough Dergh, in the middle of Ireland and we angled down to the southern reaches of it near the Holy Isle.

Along the way we pulled off to visit a prehistoric wedge tomb from about 2000 BCE that off the main road we were traveling on. Ater stumbling a little way into a cattle pasture:

Then it was back to Tralee and after popping in Paul's place for a few minutes we went out to a couple pubs in town.

The next day we all slept in and in that I was going on almost 48 hours awake I took full advantage of the opportunity. The next day we all woke up around 1:00 in the afternoon and Paul fixed us all a big traditional Irish breakfast, which we ate at 3:00 in the afternoon.

Then it was off to Dingle. I actually visited the Dingle Peninsula the first time I visited Ireland and we went back to at least a couple of the same places. After going down to the very end of the peninsula at Slea Head, we went back to the town of Dingle and started hitting the pubs. After getting a room – or two rooms, one for Chris and Jennifer and one for Paul & me – at a B&B we ended up in a late pub (stays open until 2:00) that Paul usually goes to in town.

We left Dingle and came back to Tralee where everyone just napped and lounged until going to dinner at Paul's old restaurant.

Apparently Chris and Jennifer left back to the states this morning and Paul is pretty much exhausted. Whereas I slept in and am finally getting things together, including this blog.

Starting Monday I have to start getting my trip in order...

Day 1 (10 Sept 08) - Well, that was a fairly unplesant...

2008-09-15T10:07:00.000-06:00

... trip. First was the ride down to Atlanta, which went seamlessly, but meant I had a full three hour wait in Atlanta airport, which (unlike Denver & Tralee) does not provide free WiFi. So I found myself hanging out in the exact same airport bar I was in when I went to Ireland in June. However, this time they had a surprise for me. After I finished eating, the waitress dropped a beer, specifically she dropped a beer IN MY LAP. So not only did I smell like a brewery, it also looked as though I pissed myself. Well, what can you do? I guess I could have pitched a fit, but that wouldn't have changed a single thing, so I took it in stride. Luckily, the very light-weight clothes I was wearing (due to GA heat) dried out quickly so by the time I was boarding the flight to New York I didn't look any worse for the wear, though I probably still smelled like an insane drunk.

Anyway, the flight to JFK in New York was also uncomfortable, in that every single seat was taken, so we were packed in like sardines and I had a very nice – but very old and very fat – guy sitting next to me burping and farting and picking his nose & ears for the whole flight. Again, what can you do?

Once at JFK it turns out that New York doesn't allow smoking in their airports; so since I had a almost four hour lay over, out I went to smoke. However, unlike every other airport I've ever been to, it would seem that JFK doesn't have any sort of concessions outside of the security area, so to be outside meant no food, no drink, no nothing until you go back through the security check in. Finally I did so and made my way to my gate (12); only to discover that apparently both the flight number and boarding gate on my pass had been changed. Of course this wasn't announced until the moment after I spent $10.00 out of sheer boredom for a T-Mobile Hotspot day pass so I could play online for the remaining hour. While my old gate was a T-Mobile Hotspot, my new gate wasn't, so that was $10.00 literally thrown away for absolute nothing.

Thankfully, the flight to Ireland was not packed, so I got a whole row to myself; so it was very comfortable. Further, using Mom's idea of Oliver Twist Chewing Tobacco Bits – little pellets of tobacco that you put in your mouth, but don't have to spit from – the entire flight over was pleasant enough. Nevertheless, I still wasn't able to sleep at all. And, although the flight left on time, somehow – and I really don't understand how this is possible – we landed in Shannon a full hour earlier than scheduled. This isn't exactly something you can complain about, but then again...

... it means I'm sitting here in the Shannon airport cafeteria-style eatery, just ate breakfast, and haven't heard a word from Paul. So it seems I may be around here for a little while… Oh well, I'm sure it will be all be fine.

Day -ii --- Starting my blog & the Schengen Zone

2008-09-07T17:48:00.006-06:00

I didn't intend to activate this blog until I left the United States and have been posting most things over on my MySpace Blog. However, today - two days before leaving the States for good - I posted a comment that is relevant for my travels and decided it would be a good way to get started here.

Anyway, the Schengen Zone covers most of the European Union. In order to travel without going to the trouble of getting a long-term visa - which is considerably more difficult - I have to travel in the Schengen zone for 90 days and then hop out into non-Schengen countries for another 90 days. Further, since most countries only give US passport holders 90 days as well, when I hop out of the Schengen zone I have to have access to two different non-Schengen countries to make up for the one day overlap between the 90 days in and 90 days out of the Schengen zone. If I didn't mind being illegal, a lot of this wouldn't matter, but since I want to stay legal, I made a map...