Joe's Blög

So back from the Northland today. I’ll try to recap…

Tuesday…flight was delayed…Missed connection…spent 6 hours at the Frankfurt airport waiting for next flight. Land in Stavanger at about 11:40. Arrive hotel about 1:15.
Wednesday…worked for a few hours. Took a boat ride with everyone from the workshop. great great great!!! We stopped off someplace and had fresh shrimp and baileys with coffee The nicest day of the week. Windy, but sunny. No rain.
Thursday…worked for a few hours. Had the best restaurant dinner I’ve had in a very long time. Incredible food in some tiny historic town. Then took a tour to some fjord where the Brits sank a german boat in WWII and killed a bunch of Russian POWs…I was only half listening to the history lesson, but it sounded quite interesting.
Friday…worked for even fewer hours – are you getting the hint that the Norwegians only work for about 2 hours a day
Took a nap then went to a place called “BarBar”…I was accosted by some grandma who really liked me…and not in a grandmotherly kind of way It was kind of cute to be hit on by a 60 year old woman. We all had a laugh. Luckily, I was strong enough to resist her charms maybe next time Jenny!
They stop serving alcohol about 2, so I snagged a couple beers from the hotel minibar and went down to the harbour until about 3 with Agnieszka. We had some good chats.
Today the plane was delayed a bit, but my boss and I made our flight (Agnieszka did not!). Finally got home about 9. Long day…tired.

Norway was beautiful and I’d like to go back again for a holiday sometime. In the pics you can see all the flat rocks. I guess they were formed by glaciers moving over them. The glaciers left lots of rocks on tops of hills, which is kind of funny – to see boulders on top of a hill.

Here’s your chance to learn something today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

and here~s the full pic page:
http://www.joesquires.com/egersund-norway-may-2011/

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I’m bound for Norway tomorrow…Did I mention I’m the worst packer ever
My boss is also travelling with me and it makes me realize I’m probably the worst traveller ever…She was going over important details about the trip that I wasn’t really concerned with …as is my normal travel procedure.

One of these days being too laid back will bite me in the ass, but it hasn’t happened yet

Back Saturday night…This page will probably be dark until then.

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So I’ve uploaded some videos to YouTube…first 2 are from Croatia, 3rd one is Sarajevo and the last 4 are from the sailing trip to the Netherlands we took a couple years ago…

Danucci’s boat was much faster than ours

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The weather here is great…it rained way too much in November and December, but since I’ve gotten back we’ve had about 1 rainy day!!! The days are getting longer (in case you hadn’t noticed) and it almost feels like spring.

My mom is checking my page about 10x a day, so I guess it can only mean she’s unemployed or something hi mom.

I finished another Murakami book! one of the best! I also figured out that pretty much the only girls who speak english here are from Eastern Europe…I shall be focusing all my attention on figuring out accents from now on

I’ve used 3 smiley faces in 3 paragraphs…

I got Bergers photos from the first half of the trip…should be below. Berger took most of these (he may have passed me the camera for one or two)…I have lots more, but I’ll put them on the proper pages (links on the right side) this weekend or something…

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I suppose I should review my ‘Balkans/Budapest trip a bit before I forget…in concise points

• Taxi drivers will rip you off every chance they get, so agree to a price before you go anywhere.
• I never really felt fully safe except in Zagreb. Dudes just hanging out on street corners just looking dodgy. If you’ve walked through or near the red light in Frankfurt you basically get the idea of what all the major streets in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Budapest feels like.
• Budapest has a reputation for really hot girls, but I gotta say that Zagreb was better.
• People may not speak english, but they probably speak German. You can get by in the Balkans and Hungary better if you speak Deutsch.
• Keep your wallet in a zipped pocket. I did, but it basically means you can’t take your coat off for the whole trip.
• Don’t smoke whilst walking down the street. People will stop you every couple minutes.

That’s all I can remember right now…Berger, did I miss anything?

As the subject says it’s a really nice day today. Must be about 16° and gorgeous. I’m loving this weather.

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Last day to Budapest. My plan was for New Years and the 1st in Budapest then to Romania for a few days, but I just decided to stay in Budapest for a few days and relax since we had travelled so much the past few days…

Berger had to leave on the 1st, so I was alone the last few days. I do have to give Berger a medal for taking a VERY large bullet for the team on New Years eve
Strangely, I met a couple girls who spoke German, but no English. My Deutsch came back in a hurry

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Train to Belgrade and just enough time to meet Zoya and have a drink or two before hitting the rails again the next day…

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Next day catch a train to Sarajevo…Spent 2 nights there. Was OK…actually not so interesting, until the day we left when a tram driver got stabbed outside the train station…ummmm…yeah!
We asked at the station what happened and someone said it was just a fight, but on the train we asked our fellow travellers and they said it was a stabbing.

this is only funny cuz Sarajevo seemed to be the safest city we went to in the Balkans…

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So I got up on the 26th, planning to take the bus to the station and hop on…Unfortunately after hanging out at the bus station for 20 minutes I realized the bus wasn’t running that day (or that morning) (expletive!). Walked to the bus station and arrive about 2 minutes after my planned train leaves (expletive!).
Go to the ticket counter for assistance, and she seems to give it to me. I pay her 28€ -  which is about half of what the website showed. Cheers lady! You’ve been very helpful (take back on expletive!).

hang out for half an hour and catch the next train.
Text Berger to tell him I missed the train and we can either meet in Mestre (original plan) or just go to Trieste. He’s on time so will decide later.

About 6 hours later I get my ticket checked…dude informs me that I am not holding a ticket, but just a timetable (double expletive!). Telling me that I only have to pay for the ticket and no fine (“no fine. It’s Christmas. See, I am nice man”)…so I shell out another 18€ for what was the remainder of the trip.

Finally arrive in the evening and meet Berger in Trieste…It’s really cold.
He immediately informs me that he screwed up and our plan to leave in the morning to Zagreb is no longer valid. There is only a night train (more expletives!) and it arrives at 4:20 in the morning…(do’h)…so here’s lesson number 1…the timetables shown on the train websites are not always accurate.

We just hang out around the Trieste train station as we have about 4 hours to kill….it’s about 7pm. We go to a pub near the station and after sitting there for about 15 minutes we hear a loud noise and think nothing of it…about 2 minutes after that some dude staggers to the toilet with blood running down his face. Apparently he had just taken a bottle to the head…it’s 7:30pm and even though we’re still in Italy it’s starting to feel like eastern europe. Great! This is just the thing we’ve been warned about by friends for the last few days (Pete: “Keep a low profile” and “don’t step on any land mines”). There are only 6 people in the pub. Berger comes up with the genius idea that if we run into trouble we should just knife fight each other to distract whoever is giving us problems.

We eventually catch the night train and arrive on time…Step off the train and realize I haven’t felt cold like this in a very long time. I just started shaking after being outside for 10 seconds. The train station isn’t really open yet, but we can go in and there’s one room that’s semi-heated.
Stuff opens up at 5am so we didn’t have to wait long to get something to eat and drink. Our host is going to pick us up at about 8. We chill in the station and long for some sleep…

Andy picks us up on time and takes us home. Have some tea. Meet Poppy (his father in law) and then lay down for about a 4 hour nap.
Wake up with a headache and we all decide to catch a bus and go to the top of a mountain. Bus drivers in Croation are a bit crazy. Especially when driving up a snow covered mountain…but I guess he knew his chicken cuz we made it.
Walk around…take pics, have some gluhwein…then end up in the ski club restaurant…Andy knows the owner so he ends up sitting at our table for a few hours…When he finds out we’re going to Budapest he says (with thick Croation accent) “In Budapest anything is possible…heheheh…..ANYTHING…hehhehheh”. I assume he’s not talking about getting stabbed on the street…

We made friends with the staff…got lots of free food and drinks and then at the end we’re late for the bus and have to run to catch it…ummmmmm….never make the cripple run. My legs were sore for about 3 days after this. I would be creaking like an old man for the rest of the trip
My favourite part of the run is when Berger decided to take a shortcut and run through the woods…I just saw some dark figure in the woods…wasn’t sure who it was until later.

After all that we went to meet Barbara (andy’s missus) at an Irish pub and then some late night food…was quite an eventful 24 hours.

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Didn’t do much today. Kind of boring. Doesn’t really feel like a holiday.

Took care of more  hostel bookings for the trip…

So it looks like 1 night in Trieste, IT

1 night in Zagreb, Croatia

2 nights in Sarejevo

1 night in Belgrade

2 nights in Budapest…from there I’m pretty open.
Am thinking of going to Brasov Romania (Translyvania) and/or Bucarest Romania…then find a stop for night somewhere between there and here before coming home…

if I don’t show up in a couple weeks will someone plese call the hospitals in Romania

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