Bye bye, Bulgaria

Hiking in Bulgaria

Earlier this month, we spent a few days in Bratislava, Slovakia and spent one of those days walking in the forest on the outskirts of the city and it was the most beautiful, tranquil day. I blogged a bit about it here.

Well, after a very lazy week in Sofia, we discovered there are a bunch of free tours on offer - you just turn up at the appointed place at 11am and off you go. There are walking tours run by PhD students and an enviro not for profit group called Sofia Green Tours runs cycling tours and a hiking tour.

Phil was excited by the idea of the hiking tour. As I mentioned in my last post, the Vitosha mountain is pretty much the first thing you see when you arrive in Sofia. It overlooks the whole city!

So when Phil suggested we do it, I was keen. I was keen despite the fact that (1) I have no hiking clothes (2) I have no hiking shoes (3) Despite all the walking we've been doing, I have no mountain climbing fitness...

But Oggi - a very laid back, part-time freelancer, part-time hiking guide (basically, Phil's dream life) got me through in one piece. Actually, Oggi was great, but it was more down to Phil carrying all my our stuff!!

It was a fair hike though - we were out for 6 hours total - probably walking for about 4 and a half. There were points where each step drained the life force from my body. I definitely inadvertently grunted at least a few times (to my own horror) and the landscape went a little blurry more than once (probably not a good thing, right?).

But the stunning scenery was the perfect distraction (we hiked to a waterfall and a lake - even spotting a woodpecker!!) and the spectacular views across the city, a worthy payoff. I was thoroughly put to shame by the trail runners who passed us a couple of times on our hike. Incredible. Apparently, our guide Oggi also comes in the winter to ice climb the waterfall!!



Bulgarian mountain forest


Phil at our lookout point


Lake housing the world's loudest frogs and tens of thousands of squirmy tadpoles

Oggi was also able to answer my burning question about Sofia - ie what gives with the car honking/ balloon decorations???

Oggi explained, "oh that, you picked the wrong week to come to Sofia. It's the kids graduating high school". He went on to tell us that they get really excited and have proms and graduation ceremonies, although "I don't know why they do it - they're either going to do more study or get some bad paying job" - so true, Oggi, although perhaps lacking a certain romanticism.

So hiking in Bulgaria gets two thumbs up. I feel, of course, like I've been beaten with clubs (soooo sore), but nothing a well-deserved wine or two won't fix!!

Sofia
I am going to miss Sofia. We ended up staying an extra 3 days because it's such a nice, easy place to hang out.

It doesn't have the striking wide boulevards and churches and monuments of other parts of Europe. But it does have $5.50 IMAX five minutes down the road.

It has that feeling of an underdeveloped city - random patches of jungle in the middle of city blocks, crappy apartment blocks that won't last 25 years, stray dogs in the streets. But at the same time there are Roman ruins and beautiful churches (and mosques) and the university and it's gorgeous botanical gardens.

The lovely locals made our day over and over again by being super friendly and helpful despite our paucity of Bulgarian. I'd love to see a bit more of the country side - the rural part where they grow all the cherries and strawberries and roses.


Look at this pile of cherries!!




And if all that isn't enough, they had tomato sauce flavoured Ruffles!!

To Greece
Now we're off to Thessaloniki for the start of 3 weeks in Greece!! I have been to Athens once - in 2001 - and it will be Phil's first visit.

In a few days, we're meeting my sister, Lex and our friend Louise for a week in Nafplio - Greece's ancient capital. I'm soooo looking forward to their company... And to bbq'd octopus and spanakopita!! Oh yeah, and the history and culture and stuff too ;-).


Postscript: the Bulgarian trains are competing with the Polish trains for slowest in Europe - we're pulling into Thessaloniki at 11pm - a mere hour late.

But... we did spot two donkeys on the tracks about 3 minutes over the Greek border and a horse and cart flanked by two sentinel goats - it bodes well...

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What the hell is that noise, Sofia??

Sofia

OMG this place is noisy!!

We are currently sitting in our lovely Bulgarian apartment watching some athletics on our fancy full package cable and grumpy old man Phil has just turned to me and said - "is that someone drumming... at a quarter past midnight... on a Tuesday?"

After whipping around Eastern Europe these past - what is it now, six weeks?? - walking til we dropped, followed by the epic train journey, we arrived in Sofia... absolutely knackered.

Once we'd checked into our apartment on Thursday night, I took one look around and decided not to move for at least a couple of days.

We lucked onto just the right place at just the right time - I think this is our favourite apartment so far!! Right in the centre of town, big kitchen, nice open lounge, balcony off the bedroom, perfect.

Plus, we've got the aforementioned "full package" cable which, it turns out in Bulgaria includes several porn channels, which is... an interesting choice for a rental apartment.

About half the the channels are in Cyrillic, which meant that I channel surfed right into it... resulting in a scream from me, followed by Phil bursting into the room to see what's wrong and then five minutes of hysterical laughter (from me)... because I am not very mature! We are now sticking to MTV and Eurosport...

I know, right? I didn't want to have to mention it, but I have a journalistic responsibility to report the facts!!
* Update - Phil snorted when he read this... can't imagine why.

We have observed are a couple of unique traditions here - one of them is attaching balloons to the outside of cars.



I would guess that about 20% of the cars we've seen are decked out like this

The other "tradition" is honking one's car horn for no apparent reason. I think they're both meant to signify celebration. There seems to be about an hour each evening where it is a near-constant stream of honking - mostly from cars sporting balloon decorations. I've started calling it the witching hour - it's starts at about 6.30pm and doesn't let up!

Every night there seems to be some sort of party going on. Last night, from our balcony we could see a large crowd of people - all really dressed up - walking down one of the main streets with a police escort followed by what seemed like an endless trail of balloon cars and honking horns. One car was doing almost stationary burn outs on the road throwing up plumes of stinky smoke!

Tonight there were three guys walking through the bumper to bumper traffic outside our building playing drums and a saxophone and getting high fives from all the stationary drivers. Again, no idea why...

Oh, and to add to the noise, our neighbours are renovating the apartment next door so there's a constant symphony of bangs, drills and sanding to complement the honking and drumming, etc.

And Sofia

Sofia is... a bit of a grower. The more I see of it, the more I like it!

My first impression of the city was the dramatic mountains that frame the North side of the city which is a gorgeous view, especially from the main shopping strip.

The look of the streets reminds me more of Malaysia than the rest of Europe. It's a bit run down in a charming sort of way (cracked footpaths, streets, buildings), with hole in the wall shops and bars everywhere and hot and humid, or alternatively thunderstorming... It's pelted down every day so far.



Crumbly apartment blocks abound

But other parts of the city have a more European feel with huge churches, an impressive parliament and uncovered Roman ruins dotted throughout the city.


Roman ruins a couple of minutes walk from our apartment

It's probably the least expensive city of the trip... It's taken a few days to adjust to the Bulgarian Lev, but my budgeting app tells me that it is great value. $1 per litre of beer is the cheapest we've seen in Europe.

The people are super friendly and English is fairly widespread, which is good because it's taken me five days to learn the word for "thank you".

Random things I've noticed about Sofia include awesome street art, lots of unique independent fashion stores, and heaps of tiny hole in the wall places selling nuts and honey. Plus for some reason, all the basketball hoops in schools appear to be sponsored by chupa chups!



Street art - half the transformer boxes in the city are painted

Apart from our random street wanderings (and they are random - I can't seem to get my bearings at all and the Cyrillic street signs don't help) we've visited the Alexandar Nevsky Cathedral which made even this churched-out traveller stand in awe, the movies (at early 1990s pricing) and a fantastic little place called vegan kitch for a delicious lunch of chickpea burgers! We also tried the traditional breakfast drink, boza, which is made of fermented grains and smells a bit like a soggy bowl of Special K!


The impressive Alexandar Nevsky Cathedral



Centre of town - they have near silent trams whipping through

Phil has proclaimed that Sofia has the best soundtrack of our trips so far. We keep hearing awesome classic 90s hits everywhere we go!And, to top it off, look who's touring:


We got to listen to the whole album over lunch yesterday.

There's still lots to see in Sofia and we're here until Sunday, after which we head to Greece.

Maybe we'll figure out what all the car honking is about by then...



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Bulgaria, baby!

We made it through an insane 22 hour overnight train journey from Budapest, and are now in Sofia, Bulgaria - woo hoo!!

The overnighter
Despite some slight misgivings about such a long trip (did I mention 22 hours with no breaks??), it was actually really fun!!

We left at 7.30pm on Wednesday night, with an arrival time of 5pm on Thursday. I had a surprisingly peaceful night's sleep, despite three(!!) sets of border guards visits at 12.30am.

They were all really friendly people, but what a job - getting on trains at midnight to look at passports and sleepy people who can barely open their eyes to compare passport pics.

The cabin
We had our own awesome little sleeper cabin which was seriously deluxe with full sized bunk beds and a little sink and mirror, including air con (okay, we had an open window...)

We did have our own "concierge", Tomas who we only shared with one other sleeper cabin (it was not a very busy train!!) Tomas looked after us on the journey - presumably to make sure no one stole our stuff, or killed us in our sleep... just kidding - we had a triple lock on the door and I felt very safe.

He even delivered breakfast of a cappuccino and "7 day croissant" (the UHT milk version of a chocolate filled croissant - ie long life) which was perhaps not the best croissant ever... but hey, who am I to complain about a free breakfast??






Nice, right? Definitely waaay more space than a plane!

The trip itself was really relaxing. We spent the whole of Thursday on the train reading and peering out the windows - such a restful interlude after a week of pavement pounding in Budapest...

It is a large distance from Budapest to Sofia (in kms) but it turns out the main reason the trip takes so long is the sleeper carriage is the only part of the train that goes the whole way... It gets unhooked and hooked onto half a dozen different regional trains and taken through a host of very small towns and through some beautiful scenery.

Here are a couple of pics of the journey:


Beautiful views from the train



Leaping spring foal in Bulgarian countryside

At more than one of the Bulgarian stations, there were horses and carts parked at the station!

If you had the time, I would definitely recommend this as a great overnight train experience. We used the Eurail pass and paid a supplement of AUD$40 each for the sleeper cabin.

Zoo cafe, Budapest

Finally, I just had to post a couple of pics of our visit to the zoo cafe in Budapest. We went on our last morning, having spotted it the day before and it didn't disappoint. We ordered iced teas and in exchange, got to hold lizards!! They also had half a dozen cats wandering around, a cockatoo, a macaw, chinchillas, rabbits and guinea pigs - so cute!




Phil holding bearded dragon


Macaw!


Moustachioed kitty


This one looks like it's singing an aria

Sofia
I always make these blog posts too long, so updates on our time in Sofia in the next post...

Losing our minds...

This week in Budapest
It has been a glorious week in Budapest. Warm weather (it was 31 degrees today!!), great sights and looong days of walking.

Despite previously raving on this blog about the awesome - and cheap - public transport in Budapest, we have been relying on our feet this week... and walking 15km a day!!

Slight downside is my fave walking shoes are already getting a bit trashed - damn you uneven cobblestones!! Plus, I am tripping about five times a day... On the upside it gave me an excuse to buy these cheetah themed Vans which are super cool.



And super appreciated since in addition to wearing down my shoes, I managed to break/lose two of my four pairs of earrings this week. Ach, it happens...

This week we wandered all over the city. We checked out the castle (which now houses a gallery), visited Europe's biggest synagogue, drank a crazy amount of hipster coffee and went to several ruin bars (I'm on the wagon for the rest of May!!!) and a couple of farmers markets.

I would love to tell you about all the authentic Hungarian food we have tried but actually we've had dinner at the Hummus Bar every single day this week. For shame, right? But, before you say anything, our apartment has no kitchen, so we can't cook. The hummus bar is 2 mins away and has Phil's 2 favourite foods (the aforementioned hummus & freshly baked laffe bread) - it makes him so happy!! Plus there is plenty of meaty goodness for me - especially in the form of life-giving chicken soup which I have also become a tad obsessed with.

We did have a Hungarian style lunch in a restaurant on one of the epic walks. I had a bean stew with four kinds of sausage - it was amazing and so huge I couldn't even get through half. The veggie options were limited, so Phil ordered cold fruit soup...


Yes, that is a huge pile of whipped cream...

I've blogged about our apartment experiences before. The one we have this week has some highlights - an incredible location, coffee machine and super comfy mattress. The downside is this terrifying ladder that is barely attached to the wall and leads to the bedroom.



Every time I step on it, Safety Phil tells me to tread lighter... and has more recently taken to asking me if I really need to go upstairs - ah, you mean where we sleep?? Yup, kind of.

We didn't do everything on the list this week - I was keen to try out rollerblading for the first time in, say, 20 years. But we discovered that the skate park had trekked for MILES in the baking sun to visit was about the size of a mini golf course and full of 12 year olds. Crushing!!

On the upside, I think the highlight of the week was discovering the Zoo cafe - like the cat cafe in Melbourne insofar as there are cats running around but also turtles, lizards, snakes, hedgehogs, cockatoos and more.


Kitty at zoo cafe

Did I mention that we've lost our minds
I say this because tomorrow we are taking a twenty two hour train ride to Sofia in Bulgaria!

We previously took a night train from Munich to Budapest which went pretty well - not the best night's sleep ever but a fun experience.

I knew this one was a longer train trip when we booked our ticket, but it was only today that it dawned on me what we'd signed up for. Basically a flight to Europe but with no breaks... Who would do this to themselves????

I will be sure to let you know how it goes... After Sofia it's off to Greece for sunshine and spanikopitas- can't wait!!

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The best laid plans

Budapest (again)

We are back in Budapest this week.

Our original plan had been to stop over in Budapest for two nights on our way to Romania, then Bulgaria and onto Greece. But unpacking and repacking every four days tends to unpick the relaxed vibe, so we decided to skip Romania and just chill in Budapest for a whole week. We loved our time in Budapest last month and Romania's not going anywhere, right??

For the sake of clarity - travelling around like this for months is seriously my dream lifestyle and I am loving it. But we're in this for the long haul, and are discovering that moving a bit more slowly is way more fun!

Despite doing heaps on our earlier trip to Budapest, the city is so huge and diverse we've had some new experiences as well as repeating some of our favourites from last time.

Here's the last few days in pics:


Coffee at My little Melbourne Cafe - we spotted it, had to try it and it was awesome! There has been waaaay too much coffee consumption in the past two weeks. I blame a sudden abundance of great coffee. We also tried some palinka - not sure what to blame that one on ;)



Dohany St synagogue - the largest synagogue in Europe! It was apparently designed by non-Jewish German and Hungarian architects, which explains the presence of a huge church-style organ...


The streets are filled with buildings exuding character...



And insane street art


City park Sunday market - there was a literal herd of animals on offer - chicken, lamb, pork, beef, duck, goose, goat...


This one was not on the menu - awww...


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More photos

More photos??

Okay you asked, why so few photos in the blog posts? Okay, you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

This blogging platform doesn't like too many photos. I draft a post full of awesome pics... and it randomly refuses to publish my blog posts until I remove half or more of them.

So, if you want to see some more cool pics from the trip, take a look at Phil's tumbler page. It's pretty awesome.

And here's a pic I couldn't fit in the last post:



Polish milk bar feast - borscht, kasha, spinach pierogi and vegetable pancake - $10!!

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Eastern Europe trail

Poland
So Poland already seems like so long ago... But I really didn't tell you much about our week in Warsaw, so a couple of notes about our week there...

We had a really awesome apartment in Poland with a really nice, comfy lounge which led to spending a couple of days just chilling out in the neighbourhood and one day was spent in Chelm. So it left us with four days to check out Warsaw.

We did a lot in those days - or at least a lot of walking. Our lovely place was a good 4.5km from the centre which meant lots of long walks into town. (There was a metro and a tram, but you see so much more walking...) I already blogged about our trip to the Old Town and the museum of modern art.

I don't think I mentioned that the museum's cafe was a super hipster hangout with great coffee and we spent a few late afternoons there with an aeropress and a piece of cheesecake - aren't we just insufferable??

We went to a few of Warsaw's beautiful city parks and hit another polish milk bar where two of the dishes tasted just like my grandmother's - worth the trip to Poland alone.



The polish zloty went far - with food, drinks and public transport all good value. Plus PayPass everywhere was bliss!!

While the metro was fast and reliable, the regional and intercity trains were not so much.

Our trip back from Chelm was - according to Phil - a sackable offence in Germany. We got home three hours late (at 11.30 pm - sooo tired) after that trip. And the train out of Warsaw was not delayed or stopped at all - but it just went slowly enough so we missed our connection to Bratislava making us two hours late! No announcements, no info.

I guess what I'm saying is don't trust Polish rail!!

Bratislava
Bratislava has been a distinct change of pace. Where Warsaw's weather was a bit rainy and gloomy at times, it's been sunshine all the way in Bratislava.

Where Warsaw is an enormous modern city, Bratislava feels much smaller - and very quiet. Almost a touch deserted. But not in a bad way... I like being able to close my eyes and cross the road! Okay, it's not that deserted... There are trams everywhere and the beautiful old city centre has a few tour groups wandering around.


National Theatre in Old Town

We hung out at the waterfront area which is a bit Southbank-esque but on a much smaller scale. Eastern Europe is obsessed with ice cream and Bratislava was no exception - every second person down there had one in hand. We caved and had the most delicious poppyseed ice cream...


Bratislava's waterfront

We also stopped by the National Gallery - which is sponsored this year, so free entry for all - and had a great sculpture exhibit and one dedicated to alcohol!

We visited the Bratislava castle - it seemed borderline compulsory, towering over the city watching you, but it was worth it for the incredible city views alone!! And we spent our last day walking in the forest - just a couple of kms outside the city centre. It was a beautiful and peaceful way to spend a day.



Stunning views


Slovakian forest

It all sounds very cultural, but we did spend a decent chunk of time in a great cafe we found down the road. There's only so much touring you can do.

And now?
We're heading back to Budapest. Did I mention how much I loved it? Plus, we are working our way down to Greece for the beginning of June and Budapest is really a necessary stop unless you want to take a 14 hour train, which I don't!

Plans include rollerblading at Europe's largest skate park and visiting the park for lazy afternoons. Phil's plan includes eating lots of hummus at the Hummus bar.

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Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day mum!!! I hope you're having a wonderful day in China (I think) and if you're reading this, please send me an email so I know you are ok!!!

Where are we now?
We finished up our week in Warsaw on Thursday and took a VERY slow train to Slovakia - Bratislava to be exact. We're now staying in a lovely apartment a few minutes walk from the centre of town.

Our train from Warsaw was so slow that by the time we arrived in Brclav - a small Czech town - our connecting train had long gone... resulting in cheap beer, pizza, and a very late arrival! But worth the trip - Bratislava is awesome, though you'll have to wait for the next post for a proper update, because...

Chelm
In honour of Mother's Day, this post is about our trip to Chelm, the birthplace of both my grandparents, and the place - if not for WWII - that my mother would have been born and possibly spent her life.

Today, Chelm is a town of 70,000 people in the south-East of Poland, close to the Ukraine border.

According to my research (ie Wikipedia), Chelm was settled by the Jewish community from the 1300s - maybe earlier - and had a significant Jewish population until 1939. Chelm was a centre for Jewish culture and learning in Poland.

In 1921, more than half the town was Jewish and in early 1939 that percentage was up to 60%. That year (1939) was the last time Jews made up more than half the population of Chelm. By the end of WWII, the Jewish population was obliterated. My grandparents survived, but their families mostly did not. Did I mention this was not a happy tale??

Part of me (obviously not a very rational part) didn't really conceive of Chelm as a real place. Which is right in one respect because the place my grandparents were born - the Chelm with a thriving Jewish community - doesn't exist anymore.

Visiting Chelm was surreal. For the record, the Chelm of my imagination was a grey and conservative yet lively and crowded place with a small cobblestoned city centre and strong Eastern European flavour.

I don't know if it was the weather (a sunny 24 degrees) or the size of the town, but what struck me on arrival was how much it felt like a country town in Australia. The wide streets, beating heat, style of houses... I felt like I was in... I dunno, maybe Benalla??

And because of the resurgence of 80s fashion, it felt like Benalla circa 1987. I'm talking acid wash jeans, rainbow high top sneakers and fluoro tops...

The major tourist attraction is the chalk mines which are - and I kid you not - apparently haunted. Ghost figurines are one of the most popular souvenirs at the tourist centre. It was so at odds with a place that I had always associated with a strong tradition of culture and learning.










There are no obvious signs that the Jews were ever there. The last synagogue which still stood at the end of the war is now a pub. Apparently, the EU sent a memorial plaque, but the owner of the pub refused to display it.


The former synagogue. There were a few people staring at us as we took this photo...

The Chelm residents wandered about seemingly oblivious, eating ice cream and drinking beer on a sunny afternoon. I felt like I was alone in carrying the history of the place and everyone else had forgotten.

Despite all this, there was something really pleasant about spending the afternoon there. Just sitting in the middle of the open street and watching people going about their lives. Trying to imagine fitting into modern Chelm.

I'd always felt that my grandparents must have missed things about Chelm when they came to Australia - like good bread and centuries of tradition. But (assuming it once existed), it's not apparent today.

My grandmother loved spending Mother's Day at one of the tearooms of the nice city hotels. Chelm has the two star Hotel Kamena, which would most definitely not have been her style...

Anyway, I mostly went to have a look and take some photos for my mum. So mission accomplished on that front. I also went looking for some intangible thing - the feeling of past generations - but it just wasn't there.

I'll leave you with the best of Chelm - its coat of arms:



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Aussies in Warsaw

We have had a couple of days to settle into Warsaw now and we've discovered a few things about Poland.

Firstly, we are not the only Aussies loose in this town... Apparently, in January of this year, two kangaroos escaped from Warsaw zoo and - one of them is still hopping around Warsaw!! Sadly the other one got hit by a truck :(


The actual escaped kangaroo

The names of the two escaped Kangas are... Steffi and Stefan. Can you believe it?? I am seriously not kidding - the same names as Phil's cousin and his new bride - these names are haunting us; check out this previous post. Coincidence or more? I'd say more.

It is now one of my goals of this visit to capture Stefan and make the press back home. When I posed this to Phil, he asked me how I'd catch him - I said I'd lasso him, wrestle him (gently) to the ground and sit on him until help arrived... naturally.

Phil is convinced that the best approach is to leap into his back and "turtle him" (his words) which apparently means wrestle him to the ground whilst on his back... and hold him there. If anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know because if I can use my 15 minutes of fame on capturing an escaped kanga in Poland, my life's work will be complete.

Exploring the culture

Okay, full disclosure, this part is about Polish TV.

Our first day in Warsaw was a public holiday AND the wifi was not working (virtually crippling this 21st century traveller) so we spent the day in the apartment waiting for our host to drop by and fix it. We both read a bit and I cooked up an eggplant ragu Joelle taught me how to make in Prague (delish - thanks Jo!!), but we also tried to watch some TV. Now we do have cable, but it's mostly Polish channels.

While flicking through, we noticed a strange phenomenon - aka the worst dubbing ever. When English language programs are dubbed into Polish, the Polish dialogue is just added over the English dialogue. So you hear the first couple of words of a sentence in English and then the Polish voice comes in over the top of it and tries, unsuccessfully, to drown out the English.

It's like counting to fifty and someone saying "twelve, sixty-seven, thirty-three" into your ear. I don't know how anyone could watch this without going completely insane!! Fortunately, the only movie on was the Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigalo sequel, so I think Polish dubbing did us a favour.

*Just so you don't totally give up on our cultural sensibilities, we did visit the Museum of Modern Art today.

We made it out of the house!!
Yesterday we headed out on an aimless wandering mission and found ourselves... smack bang in the middle of the Old town.


Pretty, huh?

It was very busy (it's a long weekend here) but felt really festive with decorative Polish flags, street performers, outdoor cafes and balloon sellers plus gorgeous buildings and majestic squares - here is hello kitty selling hello kitty balloons - talk about commitment!



Lazy Sunday in Warsaw
This morning, we dropped by a farmers market down the road from our apartment - the place was packed with people enjoying lunch from vendors.



The smell of BBQ pulled pork was excruciatingly tantalising

But we had a mission - lunch at a Polish milk bar!!

I'd never heard of the Polish milk bar tradition before coming here - but apparently, they sprung up during the Communist era and served as a meeting place as much as a place to get an affordable traditional Polish meal.

We walked into one on Saturday and it boded well - pierogi, borscht (which has a Polish spelling I won't attempt) - but it was late, they were largely sold out and we had no idea what anything else on the menu was so we decided to come back another day.

We looked up translations of the menu that evening and one of the dishes was "dove meat in tomato sauce", so I think lucky dip ordering is not the way to go!!

Today we gave it another shot and were blessed with a cashier with excellent English...

Here's the haul for a total of about AUD$10:


That's tomato soup, veggie frittata, cabbage and pickles and a Greek salad


Plus veggie pierogi - good thing we were hungry

What's next?
We're here in Warsaw until Thursday with a day trip planned to a small town called Chelm, to see where my grandparents were born.

Not sure what else we'll get up to here, but I'll keep you posted!

Have you seen April?

Wow, time is really flying!

April
April is over and it was a big month. We started in Munich where we survived a forest walk through the wildest storm in 15 years, celebrated Phil's birthday, checked out some great music at the Rattlesnake and were joined by Joelle for adventures in Eastern Europe.

We took our first night train to Budapest which was phenomenal and is now in my top 5 favourite cities. Can't wait to get back!! Prague was a mix of big sights, great beer and walks in the sunshine. And we capped off the month with a visit to one of my all-time favourite cities: Berlin. Despite a slow start, due to my laying in bed sick for 2 days (cough, cough) we packed in a lot.



I have no explanation for this...

Speaking of Berlin
Neukolln where we've been staying these past few days is a crazy, pulsating, vibrant, Turkish and middle eastern immigrant area with the best haloumi wraps this side of Turkey.

Our street (Emser Strasse) had a palpable sense of community. People seemed to know their neighbours and met for chats and a beer at the mini market under our building. Food deliveries were made from a motorbike on the pavement through open windows and on the weekend the balconies are filled with people just well, people-watching.

We spent the week walking parts of Berlin I hadn't seen much of before - Kreuzberg, Freidrichshain, Neukolln. Kreuzberg was particularly picturesque by the canal, but also had some interesting aspects...



Spotted in Kreuzberg - the box says "take for free"... it only contained underwear

Just for the record, if you're planning a trip to Berlin, I would definitely be happy to stay in Neukolln or Kreuzberg despite (or because of?) the occasional grittiness.

We checked out the former-airport Tempelhof park, hit a couple of flea markets and visited the east side gallery - a section of the Berlin Wall which has been preserved.


It was fun but we barely scratched the surface in a week and it just reminded me that Berlin is a freaking enormous city and we definitely have go back later in the year for a month.

Off to War... ahem sorry, to Warsaw
We have booked a week in Warsaw and are heading there today! The plan is to use Warsaw as a base and do a couple of day trips - one to Kraków and one to Chelm, the town my maternal grandparents hail from.

It's working really well to spend about a week in each location. so we figured this is the way to go. If Kraków looks awesome, we can go another time.

Having never been to Poland and with not a single word of Polish, it should be interesting...







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