Shqipëria

Okay, first legitimate update in a while. But finally I have some travels worth talking about, mainly Albania, which is beautiful, cheap, and has some of the friendliest people I have ever encountered. Highly recommended.

Pulling into the port of Vlore, after a 10 hour boat ride from Italy.

This is a walkway that cuts more than a kilometer through a lagoon near the ancient city of Butrinti, which is a stone's throw away from Greece and has a beautifully preserved Greek/Roman city.

Travelling buddy Karol walking along the path.

Old hotel along the beach of Dhermi, on the Southern coast.

Here you could swim and see snow-capped mountains at the same time. Incredible.

I think this sums up the country pretty well. Concrete bunkers leftover from times of communist isolation, a beautiful beach at sunset, and some litter for good measure.

View from out hotel, run by a super nice family that cooked us delicious fish caught by the father the morning of.

This photo sums up the interior mountainous parts of the country: snow-capped mountains, ubiquitous mercedes-benz, and old-style stone edifices.

Constantine or something, I really don't know or care.

A centuries old church left over from Ottoman times, I believe.

Town of Berat, looking down from the castle on the top of the hill featured in the following picture.

Ottoman style houses and a gentleman taking care of his business (i.e. on his way to sit in a cafe to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes all day).

Graffitti found in the town of Vlore.

Spinal Scratch

In a few hours I am off to the Balkans then Italy, with almost 2 weeks before I have any work/class obligation. And I only have 256€ in my account. I've been looking forward to this for a while.

Si us plau

So things have been a little bit slow around here. I've been staying put for the most part because of visitors and lack of funds, but that will change soon enough. I've been using the time to work on personal things- now the only thing left to do is develop a solid study routine. I finally started Spanish classes last week, so I have a little bit more motivation, but I still need to start devoting raw time to reading, writing, and most importantly, one-on-one conversation.

In any case, I have been a bit more active on my bike lately, even though its been breaking down on me because I haven't been maintaining it. Last weekend I had to hitchhike back to Girona from about 15km out because my tire finally gave and I neglected to bring any tools or spares with me. Nonetheless it turned out to be a fun experience and offered me a good opportunity to make nice with some locals. This weekend I took my camera with me because during my bike rides I often pass through some strikingly beautiful landscapes and charmingly quaint Catalan villages (with names I can never pronounce or remember). I can't wait for the warm weather to come- I'm going to be a cycling fiend.


Little farming village nestled between the hills.


My red stallion, about 15 minutes before the brake went out. No worries though, on a fixed gear one doesn't necessarily need a brake.

The road into the mountains west of town.

Stockholm Syndrome

I have to say that Sweden lived up to just about every stereotype that I expected. Everything is ultra modern (you return your used glass containers to a machine that automatically calculates your refund), the people are beautiful and really tall (this was a different experience for me), and they really love to follow rules (they even wait at crosswalks... I mean, who does that?). Overall, Stockholm is a beautiful city, I can't imagine how nice it is in the summertime. Everybody does in fact speak English, or at least everybody I encountered. And it was really really expensive. To ride the metro 3 stops down I paid $4.50. Needless to say I didn't take the metro that often, and when I did I didn't pay.

So there wasn't a whole lot of daylight and it rained just about every day but I suppose I managed to take a few decent pictures. And here they are.

A nice church in the middle of a cemetery.

A Christmas market downtown- a pretty happening place.

A central square with lots of lights.

A skating rink in the center of town.

I think this shot is pretty representative of what most of the city looks like.

Some nice architecture, not sure what this building is used for.

The Vasa Museet, which houses a 16th century war ship that sank in the harbour and was recovered a few decades ago, restored, and made the center piece of a museum. An extremely interesting and well designed museum.

I took this picture in a part of the museum because I thought it was pretty funny. As I am sure many of you don't know, Scandinavia (and Stockholm) is world famous for the quantity and style of death metal that it produces. When you see that they have a history like this, it makes sense that Swedish musicians are able to produce such brutal tunes.

I liked how the architecture just cuts through the sky, much more impressive in person.

Speaks for itself.

I went for a cold walk along the edge of island where the old town is situated and saw this.

A typical evening scene.

Here is a picture of my host Leif (in the center), and Hubert, a fellow traveller from France. The success of my trip was made possible by the former and further enhanced while wandering around with the latter. Cool guys no doubt, I hope our paths will cross again in the future.

Life Plan in Maps

So just about every day I come up with a new idea for different "chapters" of my life. Why should I stay in one place and start down a career path that will leave me grounded in both place and time? I figure I would rather do all sorts of things, from being a fisherman and living on a boat to working with mentally disabled people. In the past 2 months, this is the best short term life plan that I have formulated so far. I won't even try to put these in order, but I know that in the next 2 years of my life I want these things to happen. Of course there will be more and possibly better things to come.


Idea 1:
Go to Cuba for a couple months in order to obtain fluency in Spanish. Preferably live in La Habana. Simple enough.

Idea 2:
Ride a bike across Canada starting in Halifax, Nova Scotia and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia. I reckon I could easily do between 100-150km a day, which means it would take probably 3 months if I took my time and visited family and friends along the way. Obligatory stops in Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary.

Idea 3:
Move to some sort of Island in the Pacific. Hawaii, Galapagos, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Fiji, whatever. Perhaps my biology degree or language skills could come into play here. Hawaii could probably be done pretty easily since its a state with lots of Biology positions. The obscure South Pacific could possibly be done via the Peace Corps if I ever get the money and desire to apply for Naturalization. Or if I convince my girlfriend into marrying me so that I can get papers (or if I get married to Ryan in a state that recognized gay marriage).

Mallorca

Mallorca quickly became one of the coolest places that I think I have ever visited in my life. I got lucky with the whole trip- unbelievably cheap flights, no crowds whatsoever, and beautiful weather. On the first day I chose a city on the other side of the island more or less at random and took a bus over to it. From there I walked about 15km or so across a peninsula on a walking path that I just happened to stumble upon but turned out being better than I could have even imagined. I found a really cool youth hostel that night with a gorgeous Mediterranean view- I shared the entire 100+ person facility with one other lady from Argentina- I met Sylvia the first night and ended up riding with her in her rental car all across the north side of the island the following day, stopping off at cool little towns and for outstanding views the whole way. Though it was a serious test of my Spanish, it was a great opportunity that I never would have been able to make happen on my own and without a vehicle. My second night was spent in another cheap hostel in Playa de Palma, where me and this English dude I met chatted on into the wee hours of the night. Made it to the airport via bus this morning with probably only 10 minutes to spare. Now I need to head over to Menorca.

Building outside of Alcúdia, the beginning of my walk.

Beginning of the walking path, an old country road.

The country road gave way to a proper hiking path in a park / nature reserve.

A ''La Victòria'' wild goat checking me out cliffside. Mediterranean sea, old castle, and a golf course in the background.

Walking along a ridge in the park.

Down into a valley...

And eventually to the other side of the Peninsula.

A monastery or some sort of religious building further down the peninsula, in La Victòria proper.

Walking back down to where my hostel would be.

Not exactly, but the a similar view from the hostel.

Sunset on the rocks.

Driving around the next day, one of our stops.

Another one of our stops, a freshwater lake.

I wanted to swim and/or fish, but it is prohibited.

Mountain town of Deià.

Famous Catedral in Palma.

Sunset in Palma.

Hanging out on the beach the second evening.