(Summer 2002)
Okay, let me first apologize for the lameass nature of my emails throughout the past year. Not funny, not interesting. Just 17 pounds of fat, hairy suckass in every email. All that is over! I know it's long, but it's funny. I promise. So sit back, crack open a beer and enjoy the creamy, nutty goodness of Frowbie's Eastern European Vacation. (Not to be confused with National Lampoon's Eastern European Vacation.)
So let's start with the Romanian pimp that worked for the hostel I stayed at in Dracula's home town,
Sighisoara. (There are so many things wrong with that first sentence.) Actually quite a nice guy, he showed me all around town (takes about 15 minutes) when I first arrived at the hostel. While we were drinking a beer up at the citadel, I asked him about Moldova (the country) and he told me about how cheap it was to visit, including hotel room and girl. Then he mentioned casually (sly dog) that he knew some girls in town. So later that night he shows me around town and introduces me to some. (I didn't sample.) It was interesting to see the Romanian "underground". Anyway, when we get back to the hostel, a drinking game is in full swing which I had mostly missed, so I went to bed. Sometime after midnight I woke up to a loud rhythmic squeaking. I was sleeping in a 10-person dorm room and my first thought was it was someone masturbating. I was laying there in bed thinking, "Wow, that's pretty bold." But a little later I heard a sucking sound and figured there was two people in bed (not a lot of need for foreplay before masturbation I was guessing). Around this time the guy next to me woke up and I could by the way he turned his head he was thinking the same thing I was...WTF. After 10 minutes I got up and left to sleep in the empty room across the hall (which the couple was obviously too drunk to consider using). About half an hour later, I see a guy walk into the room and begin stripping. He then crawls into the bed (which was basically two mattresses stuck together) and then I feel something touching me. At this point I'm thinking, "Okay, I don't know who you think I am, but I promise you I'm not it." Then he fell asleep (on his mattress). The next morning I woke up and it was, lo and behold, the pimp. (He explained to me this was the room they used for the "the girls".) Later that day I talked to the guy that was in the dorm room that woke up also, and he told me that after I left they really got going. They were on the top bunk and it was slamming the beds on either sides (metal). I nicknamed the room the Amsterdam Room. And apparently another another pair hooked up, right in the middle of the drinking game and started right there, more or less causing everyone else to leave. The next morning the guy asked her for her email and left. She burst into tears. (Yes, tragic, I know.)
The next night I stayed with two guys in a private room of a lady named Maria. She meets people at train stations, and is so famous that people impersonate her to get customers and she carries around a travel guide published by the Japanese government with her picture in it to prove that it is really her. This lady has a rivalry with the chain of hostels I stayed at (or rather, they have the rivalry with her). She they meet people at the train stations and take their customers. (Gotta respect the chutzpah.) She has the entire eastern
European transit system memorized.
Brief segway: While napping on a chair in Hungary between horse-riding lessons, the following occurred to me. You know how people always say, "It's the thought that counts"? Well, there are actually
some things in life where much more than the thought counts, and in fact, maybe it doesn't count at all. Three things came to mind: Cooking, poetry, and sex. Pretty much in that order. I learned this intimately in Romania where I got food-poisoning twice in 5 days. In fact, not once while I was doing my impersonation of an American fire hydrant (which sprays in both directions) did I think, "But it was so nice of them to cook it in the traditional Romanian style!" Poetry, of course, when bad, is just bad. Here is an excerpt taken from a girl from my old high school writing to her boyfriend: "Your eyes are blue, your hair is blond, God must have made you with a magic wand." Yes!!! I can just see myself reading this, fighting laughter while trying to say, "I'm stunned by the depth of emotion that must have inspired this, Buffy." Lastly, there is sex. Sex it is often said, is like pizza. Even when it's bad it's still pretty good. But I doubt many people afterwards pat their partner on the back and say, "Thanks for trying. I appreciate the thought."
Okay, on to Hungary. Great place, if a little expensive. Took thermal baths in really old bath houses and got checked out by gay men. Sweet. I went to a town called Heviz, which has a thermal lake (yes, an entire lake). This entire town is populated with large, old German and Austrian tourists wearing (very) small swimsuits. The lake not very deep and the bottom is covered with moss that emits sulfurous gas when you step on it. I just pictured a boy sneaking up behind his sister, stomping on the moss and saying, "Sulfurous gas? Whatever, Jane. I'm not sleeping near you tonight." Then there was the horse riding school I went to. Soooo much fun! It was run by a Swiss guy who was convinced all his employees were trying to bankrupt him. He was very nice, if a little paranoid. It was here that I met Gabo, a guy whose name is a better adjective than any word in the English language. He taught me to ride a horse. And while riding a horse (backwards), he would regularly yell at the trees in German "Ich bin
blöd!" (I am stupid). The cool thing (among many) about the place I stayed was that it was in a national park in the Great Hungarian Plain. I had a lesson in the morning, spent the next 8 hours being an immensely lazy sack of shit in beautiful natural surroundings, had another lesson, ate an enormous and well-cooked dinner, and then slept. Repeat for four days. Ahhhh!
Then the owners recommended another pension (hotel) in Heviz that I stayed at. This was owned by the great and mighty Zoltan, the
Hungarian gypsy owner. This guy was awesome! I walked into the pension and I hear as background music to dinner, the crazy hamster song. If you've heard it, you understand how ridiculous this is. It's hard to listen to for more than 10 seconds, let alone an entire meal. He immediately showed me to my room, which had a door that was one inch two wide for the frame. You tried to close it and Whack! it hit the door frame. (Okay it was an internal door. The door to the hall was perfectly fine, but it was funny anyway.) Then I ate dinner and Zoltan drank and continued offering me drinks, "No I insist!" Eventually I just started putting them in front of him when he wasn't looking and he drank them. He also explained to me (in front of a guest and his teenage daughter) that to get a woman pregnant it helps if you start with
"Französisch" (literally means "French" in German, slang meaning is "oral sex"). But my German was a little rusty so I'm nodding, thinking okay just speak French with her, while the teenage daughter is giggling, and the father is frowning. Then I figure out what he means and burst into laughter (father still frowning).
Moving along to Bulgaria. It was here that I met the amazing Bulgarian potato peeler. He stopped me at a food market and immediately began demonstrating his potato-peeling knives, which admittedly were pretty fast. I know this because he made me time him. 10 seconds per potato. He then explained to me that he held the world record for peeling 1000kg of potatos in 24 hours. This immediately brought so many questions to mind. 1) Is it true? 2) Who paid for the potatoes? 3) What did he do with the potatoes afterwards? 4) Did he get paid hourly, per kg, or not at all? 5) Why?! Please tell me why?! He then went on to tell me he loved America, which you don't hear much of anywhere in the world, so I listened. He then explained that some religious figure (a bishop?) had written a sterling recommendation for his family "for life". He emphasized the for life. He then asked keenly what I thought. There were two problems. One, I didn't know what he wanted my opinion about. Did he want to immigrate to America and use it as a reference? Or did he want to make t-shirts out of it and sell them? And two, I didn't have the heart to tell him that, at least in America, you can only write recommendations for an individual, and only for the past. You can't write a letter for a whole family that is good for the future. "Sweet! Got the recommendation, I'm going out whoring with my dad!" Eventually I figured out, he was in fact, not going to stop talking. Ever. So I just shook his hand, wished him luck (in whatever it was he was trying to do), and left.
Oh yeah, Romania again quickly. After recovering from first food poisoning incident, I went to a restaurant in Bucharest (recommended by my hotel receptionist). I then asked him if the food was okay and explained I had just recently gotten food poisoning and needed a good meal. He looked insulted and walked off. It then occurred to me that I had basically said, "So tell me, what are the odds of me keeping your food down?" Note: I ate here the next night and got food poisoning again. (Not sure if that's related.) Other mentionables in Romania include: while walking through the park I heard some people jamming down to a deep house version of Hava Nagila (a traditional Jewish song). And, this park was kind of dangerous to check out girls at because you couldn't really tell if they were playing or watching their own kids play, even if they were, that didn't mean they were legal yet. And listening to Abba's "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy" in a cabin in the Carpathian mountains shortly before my first food poisoning (wait a minute, maybe it wasn't food poisoning after all).
Yugoslavia was cool. I saw my friend get married in a wedding that lasted 14 hours, which is short by Serbian standards. I had the dubious role of "Dever" which is the protector of the bride (from the groom). Theoretically it also means I get first go with the bride. My friend didn't think that part of the tradition was so important "nowadays". My most memorable experience in Belgrade was a really cool girl named Maria who took me and some friends out in her 40 year old East German Trabant (car) made entirely of PVC. No
exaggeration, the thing was made entirely of plastic. It had class. Every time the car started, my seat broke and I fell back into the lap of the person behind me (strangely, seatbelts only work when you fall forwards, not backwards). And
every time we stopped to get out, Maria pulled the door handle in a certain way while I slammed against it with my shoulder. She was quite a character. If you ever seen Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and
Bullwinkle cartoon, she sounds exactly like Natasha. But her attitude is the best part. Something always seemed to be going crazy, and she was always trying to fix it (car, dog, makeup, whatever). And she had this unique combination of being relaxed and stressed at the same time. Eventually we got to the club and had a ton of fun (although the car ride to the club was the best part). Belgrade was a ton of fun, but visiting alone is not nearly the same as when you know locals.
Okay, it's getting really long, so I'll try to wrap up. First, I have to say in all seriousness it was really great time. There is so much to see in Eastern Europe. The Croatian coast is stunning. Slovenia may be one of the prettiest countries in
Europe with its mountains and lakes. The monasteries in the Rila mountains in Bulgaria were beautiful. Budapest and Prague were really impressive cities and are an easy introduction to countries east of Germany. Hungary is the perfect place to take horse riding lessons. Romania has many well maintained medieval towns in Transylvania. And of course, the nightlife in Belgrade is outstanding, especially if you can have a local drive you around in a Trabi beforehand. (Factual note: Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula, was not in fact a vampire (gasp!), and no Romanians ever thought he was. Bram Stoker merely used him as the basis for a character in his book because his habit of eating dinner with a Turk impaled on a spear writhing in front of him was a little spooky. Also, Transylvania was not overloaded with touristy kitsch like I expected.)
In short, it was fun and I learned a lot. Eastern Europe is not as "eastern" as I used to think. Enough people spoke
English that I had no problems getting around. And if they didn't, there is usually enough context to get you along. Example, if you are the ticket desk in a train station and say "Budapest" they don't think you're asking for the population density. They just give you a 2nd class ticket to Budapest. Also, many of the countries are doing really well from tourism, like Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. If you are thinking about making the dip from West to East and want to start easy, go to Slovenia, right next to Italy and Austria. Beautiful, moderately priced (not cheap though), the people are very friendly, and they all speak English, German and Italian. And although it receives a lot of tourists, it doesn't feel as touristed as Prague (which has become the drunken tourist party city of all of Europe).
This frowbie brought to you by the Romanian pimp, Zoltan, Gabo, Maria, and the 200,000 dogs running around Bucharest.
Ciao!
Matt