Myths flapping in the wind

Once upon a time in the far away kingdom called atlanta, two sisters went to see a miracle. Over the blank white face of a mountain, which peered over a gathering crowd, rode 3 confederate generals, Generals, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis. Upon that rock face, lazers displayed neon green country roads, takin' me home to the place I belong, a trumpet's horn bending and stretching like a mouth singing in a raspy low louis voice, Georgia.. Georgia, the whole day through, Georgia brown she ran all over town and a fiddler sent the devil back to hell! All sorts of images appeared which glorified Georgia, the south and the United states of America. We even got to witness these stone Generals come back to life and ride once more! The whole event ended in fireworks, parachuters and a standing ovation singing the Star Spangled Banner. It was a nationalism saturation and some people were crying out of love for this beautiful country. The sisters too had tears in their eyes, only it was from laughter.. and shock. 

I suppose at the time this patriotism was mostly just that- shocking. I didn't really see the harm in it, and I felt that if this sort of thing moved people and made them happy, I didn't see reason to get upset. Sure we have a dark past, (and present) and none of that was mentioned, obviously, and perhaps ignorance was not exactly scarce in our fellow onlookers, but this didn't strike me as particularly dangerous- a field of slightly overweight T.V. addicts holding Coca-Cola cans and starry flags.. no not so scary. 

But I am living now in a place where flags scare me. Of course, it doesn't help that the flags I see are all red with a black double headed eagle screaming for freedom. That eagle has claws that intend to gorge out ever eye that looked apathetically or hungrily at its imprisonment.

But it is not just this flag that scares me, no in fact even the flag of macedonia, which reminds one of a kid beach resort, a red sky with a yell sun smiling across its expanse.. one cannot help but smile back, and yet that flag too scares me. But most of all the Serbian flag, which appears very European with its red, white and blue, indeed the same as France, England, Australia, Russia, US, one looks upon those colors and thinks- ah, there is a tame land, what people could be blood thirsty barbarians under those colors? And, well of course all could and were, and are, but the difference, the betraying characteristic, the tear in the mask, the terrifying balkan double headed eagle lurking in those European colors, instead of waging war and spilling blood far from home, as the 'sophisticated' flags do, they wage war and spill the blood of their neighbors. 

Of course, I would never accuse Serbia of being the lone guilty one, in fact, it seems Serbia has just been played time and time again by the real instigators of this whole mess- the powers. It seems such a wicked game, those that Serbia so longs to join, imitating the colors, trying to prove his sophistication by jumping through hoops the EU sets out for him, those powers are the ones that brought this war to be. I have read and heard so many different stories, that it is impossible to say in any certainty what actually happened, but I know that since long before the Ottoman empire completely collapsed, Serbia was just a tool for Austria or Russia to hold back the Turks, and harm each other. True to form they couldn't fight a neighbor, so they got Serbia to do it. They, through where they put money, which officials in the church and state they supported, where they gave guns, what rumors they set up and spread, insured that the fire of inter-balkan hatred was fanned. They tried to keep it at a manageable trash fire, throwing in more logs when needed, but not allowing it to get big enough to become dangerous to them, which of course backfired into WWI and Europe burned too. But far from learning their lesson, the powers continued this puppeteering in the balkans through WWII and into the war of the balkans in the 90s. And now the puppeteers laugh when their marionettes ask if they can please join the big boy table. We call them barbarians, that they need to do x y and z to atone for all the crimes that the they just committed, knowing full well that we ourselves were pulling the strings! 

Dance, Serbia, Dance!

It was in such anger that I first beheld all these flags. The sole reason for them in the balkan wars was Nationalism, a kind of racism that I had such hard time understanding at first. And I would get upset at their jokes making fun of their neighbor balkan countries. I didn't have any patience for their long history lectures that detailed every century from before Christ onward on what was happening with their people, and when which neighbor came in and invaded them. But completely ignorant, and happily so, of when their neighbor was invaded, how many neighbors their own country had slaughtered, and when asked some have replied, "who cares? they are evil!" The hatred is so deep that all through the Ottoman times of oppression it was said by every Nationality here: "Rather eternity under the Turks than a year under the Serbs/Bulgarians/Greeks" (depending on who was talking). It seems they feared freedom from the Turks lest their neighbor might rise up and conquer. It's like all these Balkan countries are siblings under a king of old (the Ottomans.. or now the EU) and though the king is a tyrant and beats his children, they all would rather please him and hope for a greater inheritance, rather than work together as brothers and divide land fairly. And since the king is so much mightier, and competition with him is futile, but they are all power hungry competitive brothers, dying to pick a fight, they do so against each other at every chance they get. Each trying to prove to the kings- stepping on the hair of one brother clawing at his ankles, barely restraining another under the crook of his arm, panting and red faced- that he too is a man! But the kings, we know, are far from the noble role molds the brothers attempt to impress. They too, of course, are children, but with money to dress as adults, to watch the entertaining war dramas on screens and send their battles abroad. 

I have been reading about such savagery. I am reading a history on the balkans, leading into WWI, a new heroine of mine, Mary Edith Durham who travelled all over these parts one, writing about the cultural and political situation and was apparently stubbornness incarnate. She has retold stories of murder and mutilation, somehow they must go hand in hand here, of decades straight in Serbia where every person that came into power would be assassinated or exiled, none ended a term peacefully, without the opposite family taking power- Obrenovich or Karageorgevich. I tried to say, well we are barbaric in our own way, but really that's not how I am going to understand- trying to compare barbarism of this day and age will get me no where. What I have had to learn is that really societies have different moral codes. What impaling heads on pikes meant to us 100 years ago, meant something very different here. Along the same lines, going to war over one city means something totally different to them as to us now. To me it seemed utterly ridiculous when someone said the other day, full of pride, that if the Serbs tried to take Mitrovica, there would be another war and that he would be the first volunteer for the front lines.. as his father had 15 years ago, and now his father is dead. I looked at him and just wondered, how could he care so much about one boarder? Why would he rather die than see Serbia take this town? Where does that kind of irrational patriotism come from?

Well Albania, and all the balkans countries, had to struggle to keep their culture alive under the Ottomans. The religion, the language, their race was under siege, and it was only through remorseless Nationalism that it was preserved. There were attempts made by the Turks and then the Serbs to stop Albanians from reading and learning in their own language, and it is indeed a miraculous thing that this culture has survived. That they all have. I am such a geek for traditional music, dance, art, custom. I am so glad there are so many languages, so many ways to dance in a circle and techniques to transform milk. The point of travel, for me, is seeing different culture, so yes, I too would fight to preserve it! But at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? 

Tito kept peace in these lands by banning Nationalism, I've been told that language and religion was not a problem under him, people felt free, all talk dreamily of Tito and those golden years. But occasionally I will also hear of his strict (meaning bloody) hand when it came to Nationalists, and on the one hand some say he was a tyrannical dictator trying to keep power like all the rest, but on the other, he had seen what these balkan peoples do when allowed to be Nationalistic. He didn't kill nearly as many Nationalists as they killed each other.

But trying to count numbers of people killed and detailing who was oppressed by whom and what years is the last thing that will promote peace. People take those numbers and create myths about them. The power of story is so strong, so much stronger in fact than fact. Stories can be and have been passed down for so long about the hatred one should have for their neighbors, that it is a part of this culture, like a religion even. I hear stories of families burned in their homes, of hiding school in mosques, of the angels across the sea (meaning US). And people believe these stories, on every side, people have real stories, some they have witnessed and can pass down first hand, some are cherished since the 13th century, so oft repeated, that to question its legitimacy would be to question God himself. And I don't want to question God! I don't want to question my friends, and their stories, their culture, their being. I just wish that they had room in their hearts for another story. 

Many of my German friends remember a story from WWI, when sunk in trenches for months on end, Christmas came, and through the smoky grey air, carols floated over the enemy lines. The Germans started singing along, and in this yearning for peace on all sides, the line was crossed. Soldiers went back and forth bearing gifts to their enemies, singing, and loving, and none were shot. This is a story I am told, and it happened, but whether it did or not is irrelevant. The Germans want to remember a story of longing for unity, of brotherhood, of humanity. They want to remember the English and French, and later the Americans as allies, and so we all are right now. 

There are of course stories of peace in the Balkans, of people getting along, but even though people know that is what I want to hear about, few tell me those stories. And indeed, those stories are harder to remember. Firstly, gore is a much better story and sticks in one's head, and secondly, that would muddle the world view. It is much easier to declare oneself a victim of oppression, and to know that there are bad guys and good guys. As humans we see patterns and want to see patterns, and to declare that all slavs are evil, well, it's an easy sentence. It takes much longer to say, we've had some bad times with the slavs, but they were also quite humane at times, even likable. No.. that is long and complicated, and doesn't have a very satisfying rush of emotion, as hatred does. It is hard, it is complicated, it takes effort, and who knows if anyone even wants a new story, it is perhaps just an idealistic naive American dream. And I've seen what western dreams imposed on eastern ideals can do, so I will not fight for it. Nor will I ever ask them to choose love. Choosing to bear hatred or love is usually not a choice, sometimes we have lived in it so steeped, that that lens through which to see the world is the only thing keeping us alive. But the choice they do have is which stories to pass on. If the children, as almost all have before this generation, hear more stories of hatred, they too will grow up with that lens. But if they grow up hearing even just a few stories of love, despite spiteful teeth through which they are muttered, maybe love can have a chance.

On church bells and the call to prayer

The season was still summer, albeit late september, and the circus was escaping Montenegro which had all extremes of welcome, from putting us on national television to chasing us down threatening cops and face bashing if we did not stay at threatener's house. Even the 'hippy beach' which somehow everyone in Europe talks about, had a funny sort of welcome, once we got past the feral street dogs, the hippies also grouped together in the packs they had come in and somehow treated this like any other beach resort- with umbrella drinks and sunglasses, just this one was free- so no beach chairs and no 5am garbage collectors. Sometimes a newbie would come to the beach, dazzled by the beauty and saddened by all the trash and would spend hours picking up the offensive bottles and bags, and would lie satisfied and self-righteous before the setting sun, only to wake up the next morning to find the beach once again buried in the plastic floating in from last night's tide, and oh how the locals would laugh! But this was not our fate, we decided internally that Montenegro was a country of insanity and Albania, with the calming force of Islam, with the emphasis on hospitality and giving to the poor, Albania would have peace for us.
And indeed, crossing the boarder was magical. The scenery abruptly changed from coastal mountains to middle eastern looking hills, dry rocky riverbanks with spindly twisted trees and bright pink flowers, and as we biked, wide-eyed at this new kind of beauty, we heard a voice floating toward us from upstream, a voice that tasted of dark flavorful stews, an arabic maqam which leaned into the tension of the melody, the tension of life, and resolved it with a sigh, come to pray. It was the first time I had heard the call to prayer, and I dismounted my steed and stood by the river to properly soak it up. And soon later as we biked into town we saw in a restaurant a wedding party dancing to some turkish beat, and I was so excited to be surrounded by this kind of music, the original reason for my trip.
I was not successful in collecting traditional songs with the big group, nor really as a solo cyclist. For some reason even in eastern europe every guitarist you meet still just wants to play obnoxious western rock covers, or maybe the covers are from a balkan band, but they follow the same formula bands do back in the states. And in all the cafes, western european radio stations would be playing euro trash techno, and I'd hear oh so comforting german coming in reporting the weather in Hamburg while I sat in Belgrade. But not in Albania! Here the stations were all albanian and the music was so much more influenced by the east. The ottomans were rampart through all the balkans, until croatia, austro/hungary, but in Albania they embraced Islam and the Eastern values, probably first due to tax or violence, but the slavic peoples had Orthodoxy or Catholicism so strong, they rejected the Islam, and thus didn't take on the culture or not nearly as much, which the music reflects. All balkan music was influenced by the Turks for sure, but in the rest of the balkans I heard a distinction from Turkish music, here there is more tempered tuning (necessitated by the accordion) and different beats and tempo. Of course, the standard circle dances you can use the same basic step everywhere, from serbia to albania, bulgaria to turkey and all the surrounding countries. But there was such a clear difference even just in what was blasting out of cars as they drove by. In Serbia it was pretty western sounding, and there was a mix of what you heard. But in Albania it was just these middle eastern beats, maybe fused with techno, but never would you hear officious english or german stammering out of the speakers, never the shredding of an electric guitar. At first I was so glad of this, I thought that here in these lands, their music is so steeped, traditional music so ubiquitous, so uniform, I will have no choice but to learn it, that's all people will play on the street and I'll meet tons of musicians in no time to teach me their folk music!
But what I failed to realize was that really the music was my first warning sign. If eyes are the window to the soul, I find traditional music is the eye of a culture's soul. If the music is solo based, or if everyone plays at the same time, if the dancing is a private or public event, if there are "masters" or just teachers, if women and men dance together or separate, all these things and many more are reflections of a society. And the complete absence of any other musical styles was a warning sign to their disinterest in foreign sounds, ideas, people. But I blamed the coldness I felt as a reaction to being in a big group and I made plans to set off on my own for Istanbul, reputedly a musical hot spring.
I arrived, after what was indisputably the worst ride of the trip- an endless highway over endless rolling hilled desert, next to endless trucks blaring their horns at me, against an endless headwind into a city that rose up on a hill and I thought, finally I've arrived! as I saw the 20 story buildings shimmering above me, but when I got there, I just saw more stretched out before me, and more, and more. I stopped thinking and merely rode flabbergasted at this endless jungle of buildings until dazed and battered, I stumbled into an irish pub, the James Joyce, I had cycled over 700km just in time for the jam! I must have been a sight to see.. and smell..
There at the table sat my to be most gracious and generous host that I could have imagined, who besides making my stay so comfortable and easy, did the ultimate miracle for my soul- he played banjo with my to my heart's content! How wonderful to hear that good old-timey stompin, how I missed the perfect combo of the twang of the banjo with the wail of my fiddle!
He was, however, the bearer of bad news. He who has been living in Turkey the last 15 years, fluent in Turkish, an amazing all around musician, including Turkish Saz player, came here for the sole purpose of learning Turkish music, had not yet found a traditional turkish music scene, or people to play traditional music with. He said that he has met more people to play Turkish music with in the states than in Turkey. I think this is because of the tradition of the music. It is a solo based one, with a master to teach all the proper maqams. According to Bob, my host, most people study Turkish music in the university and it is treated like classical music in the states. Ensembles are arranged at school or between professionals hired for weddings or other private events. There isn't a jam or session culture like there is for old time or irish, and it seems there isn't as much even a culture of amateurs that just get together to play for fun.. this too is a little like what I know of the western classical scene. So there was all that standing between me and my desire to learn this music, which was wasn't prepared to let stop me at first, and I got books and CDs of the maqams and started practicing. But what really ended it for me, or let me be convinced to leave Istanbul, was a different part of the musical tradition, was was of course a reflection of the culture- that women don't play.
It was in varying degrees of discomfort that I went about a couple months of life in a muslim country. I know that there are so many perspectives on Islam and its oppression vs liberation of women, that Istanbul is a very mild case anyway, that I really wasn't there long enough even to make any definitive statements about my feelings that will hold for any set amount of time, but I do know that it was hard for me. It was hard for me to walk down the street lined with cafes where dice clacked melodiously against wooden tavla boards, where I so desperately wanted to play too, but there were only men who filled the chairs, and I knew to sit down would be breaking cultural rules. It was hard to see every cafe this way, not a woman in sight, and not think of what women do to have fun and socialize? It can't be only shopping and the movies! And it was with difficulty that I rationalized that the home is the woman's domain, that it was her strength and authority that forced husbands out of the house, out of the way and into the cafes. I got myself to understand this. But it is hard for me with a superhero mother, with her hand in a million projects, as my role model, and with my western ideals of challenging conventional gender roles, and of course being a street rat with nowhere to go when it is cold but into a cafe. It was hard to be uncovered in a colorful sea of hijab, so I covered. It was hard to perform as a solo woman, so I just performed in groups. It was hard to walk alone in some parts, so I stayed with a man. It was hard to speak out against that man in public, so I stayed silent. But slowly, I found that I was assuming the role of house keeper. I found that I started to be afraid of being alone.. and the worst, I found that more and more even privately I was keeping silent. I found that I was stepping into a role, into a mentality that isn't mine, that I was assimilating to a culture that I didn't want inside of me. I could have stayed. I did find people to play with, all westerners, but it was certainly the most thriving musical scene since Berlin. I could have made a life for myself, I could had fiddled my way maybe even into a traditional music scene.. but that act in itself is of course breaking tradition, the very thing I am seeking to learn. And, had I stayed, five times a day I would hear a voice commanding me to come pray, and reinforcing my subconscious acceptance of my subordinance.
And so I silently turned around and followed a man back the way I had come, back west.. and when we crossed into Bulgaria and heard the calm distant chiming of church bells, I think I cried. It was like coming home.

Sleep on a snowy night

Looking out my window last night, I noticed how bright the backdrop was for the barren tree, this tree whose presence I'm usually only vaguely aware of as a spot blacker than the black of the 8pm sky, but last night it stretched up with all the fierce loneliness of a true november tree against this white sky and I realized that light must be getting caught between the abundant clouds and the year's first snowfall in Kosovo, and it was at that thought, nestled under 2 down sleeping bags, behind a solid glass pane, in a bed elevated from the ground, in a house with a toilet inside, I admitted for the first time in my life, that it is a joy to sleep.
It was not long ago that I used to declare that were it an option, I'd never sleep again! I was obsessed with time and it's stinginess, and I found ways of tricking my body to save time lost on tiresome sleep. I tried self hypnosis, walking down stairs into a pool that shimmered in my unconscious, or go on walks through woods of my own sleep deprived creation, seeking energy balls of light, which I'd hungrily swallow like some magic drug and continue on with my sleepless day. But once, I got caught in my shimmering water and could not find the stairs back up into consciousness! I felt my physical body hyperventilating and shaking all over, and I started to panic, swimming around frantically and finally decided to kick off from the bottom and jump back into consciousness instead of going the gradual pleasant way up the stairs. The shock was jarring and I decided to give up on self hypnosis. But my demands for time were insatiable and I tried a new method- polyphasic sleeping. I slept only in 20 minute sections, 6 naps dispersed throughout the day, totaling 2 hours in a 24 hour period. This worked for a few months, but being on a rhythm completely alien to all of my fellow humans made me feel a vampire, walking through the night, sleeping in the day, but also just the awareness of being so alone in this contrived state made me give that up too, and I ceased with the alternative sleep methods, but still relished my disdain for this sublunar need. I wanted to be a being entirely reliant upon my mind, my time entirely dedicated to the advancement of my thoughts and ability of my fingers. Sleep was frustrating, and even eating, the time that goes into acquiring, preparing and even merely chewing on food became a nuisance and a bore.
My cycle tour would logically have been a place for me to shed these notions, my stomach was much more demanding and being now and outside cat, my rhythms were now tied with the sun and moon, and it did feel healthy to rise and set with the sun, and of course it felt miraculous after a long day's ride to collapse into my tent and disappear entirely under the moon, but I always knew that this trip was a different sort of existence, and once I got back to the city, where days fly faster than ducks, I would roll up my newfound sleep dependence in my tent and leave it there for the next adventure.
Of course I enjoyed this sleep enriched way of going through the world. Between long nights of dreaming, I would spend days on the saddle first in Germany, loping up the new scents of spring which budded all around me, and seeing bright sunny days filled with bright sunny people and I thought this tour could go on forever. But of course my legs brought me into more dismal places. First it just started with the ugly looming soviet buildings that went on for miles abandoned, which spoke of a complex history I was inevitably going to hear more detailed. But really countries simply started getting poorer as I progressed east. I would see the ruins of a once functioning village, whose fields were now nothing but dust from the flippantly laid road, which cut the village and many fields clear through the middle, and I poked behind these roaring trucks, kicking up anything in their path, and watched the villagers silently looking away from these monsters destroying their food. And then biking through eastern Europe, Romani don't have to hide their shanty towns, they know that hidden or not the local police will pick fights only if they are bored, so I so so many houses of tin and trash. Now they all wash together in my mind into a river of aluminum cans, cardboard roofs and wary faces, peering at me through cracks in the wall of garbage.
And to see all this was certainly distressing, even though I knew that they all existed. Of course, we all know that there is extreme poverty, that it gets so much worse.. but then I started going into the villages with romanesque speaking friends. I went when the leaves on the trees were already past their prime. They had glowed with embarrassed beauty for maybe a week, stunning or boring their observers apathetically, but this too shall pass, their fire withered into a crumbling brown and piles of these once collectable beauties now crunched underfoot as we entered the fortress of plastic bottles and torn shopping bags, dogs fighting over their spilled contents.
We were going to pick up the kids for kindergarten and as we walked in, children rushed at us with huge smiles and open arms. My friends are well loved here and it was beautiful to see such unrestrained joy. I was not so trusted, my broken few serbian phrases didn't get me very far and my hat was too big, I may have looked scary. But one slightly older girl, maybe 9, took pity on meand showered me with hugs and smiles. I was charmed, but only to realize she was trying to pawn off the baby she had been made responsible for so that she could go play. But of course I couldn't take that baby! I had to tear myself away from her sobbing little figure to follow my friends and all the smaller, yet unburdened kids back to school, the squat. Most of these kids were barefoot, none had jackets. Apparently they all had bronchitis and the leaves were all already off the trees. Winter is coming. The squat is collecting clothes but they had just brought all the warm things to the migrants, whose stories put me at such a loss. They are spilling out of the refugee camp which the government has provided but only has room and resources for maybe 10% of them. 300 or more are just in the woods with absolutely nothing. No food, water, warm clothes, roof, floor, tarp, stove, nothing. How they plan to survive through the winter I have no idea. People from the squat are trying to go every week with clothes and water, but it is not enough, and really what the people want the most is that their stories are heard. Many who have been through Hungary and Greece say that Serbia is so much better. They talk of just being thrown in prison for years, where they also starve and freeze, but are also beaten and tortured.. and yet, they keep fighting.
This is really what has been sticking in my head. Throughout this trip, I am continually thrown into closer contact with extreme suffering. With standards of living so low that as a white western person of privilege, I just have to wonder why? What are they fighting for so dearly? To live another day of hunger and cold? To sleep another night next to a husband who beats his wife daily? To be spat on and despised for merely being born? These are things that to me, I feel would be unbearable and simply not worth the effort. I have to wonder if I would just give up, and perhaps that is what the western european governments also think as they spare hundreds that distressing choice, and simply let them sink at sea. But those refugees, or these Roma parents, or whoever across the world, they are fighting for something, something infinitely more precious than anything else- life. Life, survival, it is obviously our whole world, it is all we are really meant to do and it is worth it. And I'm sure for many it is to an nth degree when they have children worth living for, love more powerful than death, this too carries people on to the next day. And I am so inspired by these warriors for life! They make me so ashamed of my afore mentioned disdain for those earthly necessities. I'm so ashamed of how I yearned to be a robot, that I wasn't even willing to do the basic things an animal needs to survive. But oh how glad I am to survive! How glad I am to be inside looking out, to have a full belly and 2 pairs of wool socks on. How glad I am that I have this life I can cherish and protect and that I share this with every being on this planet. How glad I am that I made it to a home just in time for snowfall, that I can curl up under 2 down sleeping bags and enjoy, fully enjoy this basic human need- to sleep.

Cycling into life

My dear friends and family, it has been a long time since I have come to this site, and I am afraid I have left many wondering and finally inquiring as to what has become of me and my travels. They continue! But perhaps, like this blog, in a different form. I have realized through my journeying that travel is simply life, varying levels of itinerancy are probably going to be shaping my life for a while, and therefore it has been weird to write about my everyday life on this site. But I am still thinking and writing, and I plan on posting thoughts here from time to time about culture, about travel, about life.
For those that appreciate knowing the route, it went as follows: Germany, quick flight over to Catalonia, back to Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, quick hitch over to Croatia then hitch back to Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, U TURN, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo. I am now in Kosovo living with my cousin for the winter, writing, reading, playing, hibernating, who knows what the future will hold for me and my steed!
Thanks so much for all the love and support from all my wonderful friends and family, and until next time!

An impossible dream in Serbia

What was a normal carefree oblivious night, beers clinking over scattered cards, children chasing dogs about the tight squeeze of a flat, became a nationwide state of panic- those walls that had happily, calmly reflected the shadows of domestic stability were shaking uncontrollably, as thin whistles careened through the air landing in huge explosions, glass showers flooding the streets, fires lighting up the sky and sending people screaming into the streets, the year was 1999 and NATO had just attacked Serbia.
My friends have relived that night for me, they have told of the horror, the shock, everyone has their own nightmare about the Aggression, but one thing they all remember- the flocking to the bridges. Knowing that the few precious bridges were the immediate targets for the american bombers, everyone stampeded to them, loaded up with beer and food to last them days, and the bridge party began. While planes circled overhead, hungrily looking at the defenseless city below, Serbians drank and made merry, relying on the humanity of the pilots to not bomb these bridges packed with civilians, standing with fervent pride and lunatic defense of their country, laughing in the face of death.
Eventually the vultures sulked off to their new nest- Bondsteel, the largest american base in the world, built immediately after the Aggression, with no tax requirement or hostility from its now allegedly independent host Kosovo. This was not the reported reason for the attacks, we were told that it was due to violations of human rights by Serbians to Albanians in Kosovo. Now Kosovo, which was once mostly Serbian, has a 10% Serbian nationality, who are guarded heavily by abundantly glaring barbed wire and military presence, protected from the local Albanians who have gotten used to endorsed violence against their northern neighbors. The few Serbians remaining live in ghettos, denied of proper education, health care and basic security. No Serbian I've talked to feels remotely safe going there, indeed many have been or are descended from those that were chased out of that territory with blazing torches, and in their absence beautiful ancient orthodox cathedrals are being flippantly destroyed and their once majestic capital has become so hostile, a visit might cost them their lives, but no one in the US is taking about human rights violations now.
And much of this violence was started by my government, and my government chooses to turn a blind eye to the situation now, and along with the rest of western Europe, continue to recognize Kosovo as an independent state without giving Serbia any choice in the matter, even so far as to protect its people.
Despite all this, despite the blatant injustice and degradation and disrespect my country has shown theirs, Serbians have welcomed me like a long lost family member. They have been so inexplicably generous and thoughtful. I feel such guilt as they bring it yet another plate of food or offer their own bed and wish to sleep on the couch so I may be comfortable. They would give their last piece of bread and starve the next day to honor their guest and this mentality, this way of treating travelers, strangers, even enemies is so inspiring. it will forever be my ambition to give travelers I meet later on in life, true Serbian hospitality. Though I'm afraid it is a job that must be taken on by a whole country. For it is not just in a home that one feels it, but on the street when asking where a certain park might be, and the random victim may not know, but will call everyone on his phone till he does, and then walk the lost tourist wherever it is they needed to go, or in a sport store opening every bike pump to see if it might fit a deflated tire, or the bottomless bowl of ice cream sponsored by the village bums fascinated by a banjo in a park, or that one can barley bike 5km without someone driving, biking it running up to offer a drink, a meal, a place to sleep. Serbians believe everything is better in company and don't like to see someone who looks like she might get lonely go without properly explaining why she must be on her own, and then still quite begrudgingly.
But in the days that I do manage to muster up the energy to become my once more socially apt self, I find myself always drawn to parks, where I get the most appreciative audience a musician could ask for- sometimes somber, quiet, respectful, other times laughing, hooting, dancing, quite regardless of major or minor or even tempo, with a musical sensibility of their own making, a herd of kids, who seem to find staring at a banjo as interesting if not more so than the swings, a high compliment indeed, and worthy of rapt attention and then rambunctious curiosity, my fiddle. They all wanted to try and, to my extreme delight, I have already 3 kids begging their parents for banjo lessons!! I am spreading the gospel of clawhammer through eastern Europe, soon I will have an army if mini Serbians dressed in overalls and straw hats, defiantly thwacking dum dicke dum dicke dum, and together we will march to Kosovo and enchanted by the contagious joy of these glorified, out of tune snare drums the Albanians will have no choice but to dust off their fiddles and join in with this knee-slapping, boot-raising clamor, which we'd take down to Bondsteel and make the american sliders dance the Cherokee shuffle, give right to your partner, say how do you do? Left hands back, say fine thank you!

But unfortunately our aggression has not just affected the southern Serbians in Kosovo, but has contributed severely to the economic situation in Serbia as a whole. "NATO polluted soil, water, and food production for an unbelievable period of four billion years. Direct economic damage caused by aggression was estimated to an amount of over one hundred billion dollars"(www.globalresearch.can/13-years-since-nato-aggression-against-Serbia-violation-of-human-rights-of-serbs-in-the-province-of-Kosovo-and-metokija/29687) This, handled of course by the ubiquitous corruption of governments in general in eastern Europe, led to a dramatic rise in unemployment that went from 12.8% in 1998 to 19.5% in 1999 to a staggering 45.9% in 2012. Of course these statistics are disputed, but some are listed as high as 64% others low as 23%.
Regardless, unemployment is quite bad here. I have meet countless people with first hand accounts of this fact and lately have been witnessing some atrocities resulting from this overwhelming poverty. One of which affecting me deeply as it has to do with my merry band of mini music makers, many of which are child beggars, skipping around super markets, parks and highways looking for money or food. The abundance of these kids is one thing to wonder at, you can't go anywhere without a child asking for money, but this poverty takes them to such extremes here.
My host today, after bringing one of these girls a bag of food from the store, was thanked by her attempting to feel him up on the street and ask to come to his house alone later. He, quite shaken and repulsed, said that the implications were quite clear and that his rejection was amusing to her. He said that he had seen on multiple occasions, young girls walking up to car windows in secluded areas, pulling down their shirts to show what they have to offer. It sounds to me like the poverty these families are brought to has made child prostitution almost an acceptable part of this culture, and obviously, since it is so widespread, is being rewarded. Even I can see how acceptable this part of their culture is when I see for example, scantily clad girls, often 13 or 14 wiping the windshields of cars driving up, not paid at all by the gas station, just by the drivers that enjoyed their performance. Or the fact that possession of child pornography is legal here. The situation is indeed quite upsetting and has me again beating my head against the wall as to what I am to do, where to start the fight, who is it against, what is the sword, what the shield?
I have been feeling so much love for these people, so much warmth and affection for their openness, their forgiveness. I have made many friends here and through these connections have become keenly aware of what they are and have been going through. I wish so much to help my friends, young and old, and have been trying by going around bringing my music and joy and now by sharing a part of their side of this horrendous tale, but it feels like so little, like this is an unrightable wrong, an unfightable foe. We need a Don Quixote to dream this impossible dream.

A Simmering Evening in Budapest

The pot was boiling and bubbling all day, the simple broth became more delicious smelling with each passing hour, meat bathed first, sending suds of fat and blood to the surface, which potatoes broke while splashing in, followed by carrots, onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, spices came bringing a paint-like consistency. The red took on swirls of thick deep orange, the colors one might find in an oil painting to compliment a black and white room of a sunset over a sea, with one lone shadowed ship sailing atop these calm waves of fire, I didn't want to eat it, so beautiful were the colors. But the stomach of a cyclist cannot appreciate art, in fact, it rarely allows for manners of any kind, and in the beginning of this trip I looked on with the others in horror as my stomach pillaged grocery stores and kitchens, I knew I had to take responsibility for the monster within, but knew not how and blushed deeply as I shoveled a 4th or 5th portion down my throat. I have now gotten used to its perpetually impoverished state and attempt to simply accept and laugh, and in this manner I took part in destroying the masterpiece before us, marginally able to listen to the bouquet of tonal inflections around me. Spanish flirtations from a couple from uruguay, hungarian bickering (for everything in Hungarian sounds like bickering) from a family across the table, accented German, one hungarian, one swedish, jump-roping in and out of understanding- all complimentarily pitched and in a good tempo to accompany the true concerto of my attention- the food too slowly entering my stomach. I felt the soloist was underprepared and no matter how many notes he played, how many bites I ate, never could he catch up, become full. They chattered amiably, as if the huge pot of stew could possibly feed us all, as if the impending doom- the bare black bottom of the pot- was nothing to worry about, as if the pot had even filled them already! But slowly the panic died down as my belly begrudgingly puffed up and went to sleep, I was full, and the pot's bottom remained clothed by the beautiful painting and we were all herded into a few cars, it was time to dance!
The danshus, dance house, glowed in content as we walked up, the band was already sawing away! Hungarian bands are often comprised of one violin, 4 strings, two back up violas with 3 strings, and a bass with 3 strings. The 4 stringed violin plays the melody, the first back up viola plays basically only the on beat with the bass, and the other plays basically only the off beats, and all with great bows of gusto. This boom chuck boom chuck starting slow and steam rolling ever faster. Hungarian folk music is really just like old time. It is all about the slight subtle variations to this rhythm which, without paying REALLY close attention to the nuance and complexities, sounds like a sledge hammer moronically pounding against your temple, I felt right at home!
Then gradually the dancers started to appear. Mostly a couple dance, but sometimes 2 couples would join to do some hopping together. We (Hanna and I) joined in and were led through the spinning and stomping madness which filled me with hilarious joy, to be circling round and round, always faster aboard the enthusiastic train. Sometimes we would just walk in a circle and our leader would slap himself on the thigh or foot quite loudly, so Hanna and I of course preceded to try the same, hopping and slapping and having a grand time. But they all sort of stared at us vigorously slapping ourselves and we realized that none of the local women participated in this particular part of the dance. In the couples, it would always be the man quite unchivalrously abandoning the women to slap himself as long as he please, she looking on awkwardly in the middle of the dance floor, until he graciously grabs her and resumes their partnership. As the night got more heated with more dancers, the women were rendered obsolete, as it was really just out of kindness that they were even allowed to dance, an the men started their brawny parade of slapping. One after another, men would take the floor and with chest protruding and nose high, would stomp and slap with the band, raising his legs and feet making lots of noise, demonstrating his all superior manliness by flapping like a hen. I think I would have been more enchanted had the women any means of expressing themselves, or way to shine on their own, to display their own skill or strength, but they were only there to provide audience to the testostronic tournament.
My host was one of these women, and I asked her about it and the machismo in general and she said that it was absolutely abominable, even from a local perspective, and that she has tried to forbid her daughter from ever marrying a Hungarian man. Even to her boyfriend, who is apparently not that bad, she could not say for such a long time that he was doing a step wrong in the dance. She and all the women in their community found it slightly awkward to dance with him and she finally gathered up the courage to tell him while we were in Budapest. After they had a huge fight about it, he was only convinced after calling a man to come there at 11pm from half an hour away, to prove that she was right.. and just that she had been right had put him in such a fowl mood that he could barely talk to us when we came home. The machismo is so deeply rooted here in Eastern Europe, but especially in Hungary, it was so blatant that to slide over it with a smile felt like slapping all the women around me with a dirty rag. It came not only in such obvious displays as this, but in how free they felt to interrupt women, to assume their superior knowledge in anything from directions (which they often didn't actually know) to preventing me from repairing my bike, they had to do it, without any experience or information OR prompting, I knew what to do very well, did not ask for assistance and these men in their bullheaded assertiveness on several occasions really messed up my bike. They also tried to play power games with me and get me to do things against my will because they knew better, and I really shouldn't be in a tent, I must come home with them, don't be silly transformed into my being ridiculous, to stupid, to impertinent, to impossible when their games don't work and they swear at my back as I ride off into the woods to set up my tent, alone and content.
I do wish I could end my negativity there, but it got worse when the band took a break and the bass player came to enjoy his drink in the company of these two interested looking foreign girls, who happened to be debating the usage of the word nigger with two swedish guys. Stumbling into the conversation the bass player was delighted at the mention of black people and seized the opportunity to rattle off his racist jokes which got progressively more and more appalling. He was shocked that we didn't know these jokes, and somehow oblivious of our lack of laughter.. and my fumes. I flared up and he sort of laughed about how he wasn't racist or anything, but.. and told another! Oh how my stomach retched as the others around him laughed, and remembering other men here who have tried to pull out this old, disproven, Nazi research about genetic racial differences and intelligence, and knowing that police in Hungary have the right to, without any reason, pad down anyone they see fit, and knowing black friends that have been searched so many times, where most white people never, and the impossibility of the task to show this culture how backwards some parts of it are, and that even as I raged, I was only seen as one crazy lady to be quickly forgotten or merely a joke made out of to follow the one about the nigger boy. How to fight?!
Well our way was to show a bit of our own muscle by taking a turn playing some music, after asking of course. And we played with healthy power woman stomping, we sang loudly and proudly, we performed with joy and confidence and used this as means of displaying our gender's independence and ability. And while the music was appreciated and there was great applause, I don't know if the message was conveyed. I will continue to try these subtle maneuvers, and I think more and more I am becoming comfortable with not even being subtle. My anger has been simmering this whole trip. It started as an idea, a simple broth, and more and more experiences have been turning my yellow discomfort to an orange frustration to a deep blood red rage. The stew is now boiling with power and energy and hot as it is, it is delicious, and I don't want to waste any of it!  I will try not to be unnecessarily rude, but I don't mind now being called crazy or even having things become antagonistic. I have had enough smiling and stepping back. Even if it does nothing, even if the racism and sexism remain utterly unchanged, it means so much to me to not ignore, for that perpetrates. I don't want to hide this fire to be polite, I don't want to belittle my strength. I am trying to stay aware of manipulation, of the slippery ways men have been taking power from me, and I am holding my ground. I have found my footing and I won't fall.

Classy Clifftop Cloggers Croatian Carousel

Disheartened and disheveled, Hanna and I seated ourselves in the closest cafe to where we had just spent the last hour, playing and singing to a lazy street of disinterested tourists. The waitress seemed a bit less than eager to welcome these a bit less than posh costumers, one with a dress of patches, the other with a dripping scarf round her head (it was incredibly hot, conspicuous means for self cooling were not shunned by us). But entitled as we were to slip in to sit and sip, we did so and with dignified pomp  ordered ourselves two espresso (the cheapest thing on the menu), and thus commenced the discussion as to what to do with ourselves outside the Schengen Zone, as my visa was soon to expire, and up stepped the balkans, each as proud suitors for our attention. Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania all made their alluring offers, but one victor arose over them all, offering his mountains, his coast, his cafes and restaurants full of tourists eager to give us lots of money- Croatia. But if we were to be a folk duo then we would need a name! And it was as we counted out the cost of our coffee in coins with a lesser value than pennies, and filled our water bottles in the bathroom sink, and applied more binding to my now more tape than cloth banjo bag- that the name Classy Clifftop Cloggers was born, but it needed to be tested on the street. With the name we both stepped into a new persona, that had confidence, had legitimacy, we had a name, and in the exact same conditions- same day, same spot, maybe 40 minutes later, we made at least 3 times as much more money and attracted huge crowds of people- the name was a keeper and we made ready for Croatia. 

With a tune and a thumb, the mountains- winding and climbing with villages and farms for knees, goats charitably pooping beneath peach trees, trucks amiably tooting as curves tightly tease, sun beaming benign at the wind, birds and bees- finally parted to reveal a most glorious sight, scintillating with azure delight, embracing her island children who rise up like little cows, an undulating pasture of colossal green beasts, who, wooden-headed allow well dressed ants to clamber all around their beautiful haunches, building resorts, banks and malls. But before reaching the mesmerizing mediterranean, an ancient city swells up, with roofs of red and roads of white, roots dating back to the 6th century BC when it was the Greek colony Aspalathos, but the architecture dating back to 305AD, the palace of Roman Emperor Diocletion, who abandoned his political post for this seaside utopia- Split, Croatia. 

The city built inside his palace is a labyrinth of milky stone, and if you find the right entrance, you could get stuck in this maze of narrow pathways where you have no choices of direction, no intersection, a claustrophobic winding between these tall, antediluvian walls, until you are finally released into a courtyard draped in lavish vines, laden with nearly glowing purple flowers.

Between these noble walls, a curious sound joined the operatic fowls and elegant chimes of wine glasses, it ricocheted conspicuously jolly, with all the exuberance of a shaggy, muddy dog playing tag atop an invaluable persian rug- the sawing of a fiddle laughing with the twang of a banjo, "We're the Classy Clifftop Cloggers and we're here to play you some old time tunes!" Beguiled by the crowds we gathered, restaurants, cafes, even lounges invited us to come and play for their 'clients', only to realize too late that what they heard was what they would get. For their subdued terrace full of ritzy tourists on their romantic dalmatian getaway we stomped, and the croatian couples attempting to whisper sweet nothings in each other's ears were thwarted by these two hillbilly girls singing boisterously about chicken! 

But the revelry had to come to an end when my accomplice had to fly back to real life in Sweden, and left me and my thumb to get back to Budapest, Rocinante, and fairy Solitaria. 

In-between ex-soviet states

-Apologies in advance for minor bouts of time travel in ensuing posts which have been floating around on various pieces of dirt smudged, weather worn, time crumpled soldiers of paper-

I realized as I coasted along these sweeping slovakian plains that I've been leaving out a major selling point of this kind of trip: the in-between. 

So I'd like to bring you now into my little tent (yep, we'll all fit!) overlooking a field of barley, the color is rust, with shades of red, orange, brown, and a yearning for october, and we can see the sun nonchalantly slipping off the horizon, as if the miracle of hues he is producing is nothing but an everyday occurrence.. really an every millisecond occurrence, that magnificent sun of ours has been making those colors somewhere, so many somewheres, every moment of it's existence, and still this set is enchanting.

We are currently under siege! I count now 20 mosquitos all desperately trying to penetrate this befuddling forcefield. I'd rather not admit the extent that this smug pleasure fulfills me, watching them writhe in frustration, my blood so tantalizingly close.. but honestly, I deserve it, after the dance I do for them every night. You know, putting up a tent is not so easy as just putting the poles together and the like, you have to be hopping and clapping and shaking your every limb so none of those little vampires can land on you, and then when you've finally gotten everything in and zipped up, then starts the massacre, hunting down every daring buzz that managed to slip through. But, we can relax now, we're safe, would you like some cherries? 

We are in the beginning of July (or were when I wrote this!), and to my great fortune, cherries are in season here in Slovakia. There are so many cherries, that vendors are all but paying you to take their cherries. But even for free, I wouldn't take them from a box, all the fun is in finding the perfect tree and climbing all over it to find the juiciest, darkest rubies! Now, I come from a family of 6, but when cherries are concerned, we are generally at least 15 at some beach or park picnic setting; and in all of my life it has never occurred to anyone to buy TWO bags of cherries. Among many other things we are a considerate bunch, and so the game of how-many-cherries-can-you-fit-into-your-mouth? is one I have been long deprived of.. but I currently have 9 in my mouth (good thing I'm writing, not talking) and I believe part of the game is that you can only spit out the pits.. Success! 

The endless road can give fruit, it can flavor your skin with the aroma of wheat, corn, manure, it can make you silly with swerving in and out of the lonely lines on the road or it can be a terrifying whirlpool of wind where trucks suck you closer and closer into their gnashing wheels. The road can flirt with you, sending you down long stretches of pleasant curves, with a lovely little village in sight, before one huge decisive curve sending you straight up and away from that cluster of cheerful huts. The road can sing to you, with its crickets and its birds, its wind and its creeks, and when it is sullen, my Rocinante has no qualms filling in the silence with his own thoughts on the matter. The road is a force of its own and is not just an in-between. This is something I think many of us have a hard time with- wherever you go, there you are! Thank you Dr. Sues, I wish your wisdom were easier to come to terms with. 

But when the road does bring me into these little villages, it is here that I am always glad that I am not on a train, or a plane, or even a bus, for why would you get off in this tiny little town, Dulovce, Slovakia? Well, you get off because otherwise you would miss this fascinating kind of architecture, a hint of russian influence in the little old churches, minimal small houses, generally of concrete and it seems you must be pretty well off if you have paint on your walls. You would miss these faces of such depth and history- I have gotten some requests for more pictures, and the thing is I never think of taking pictures, except when I see these kind of faces- where the eyes are sunk a few inches back from their face, and the skin is so weathered you'd think they'd never been inside, and the bones are gnarly and the hair is straw, where the teeth protrude at the most unnatural but human angles, where cheeks are caverns and eyebrows are forests, and the long drooping ears can hear in my belabored breath that I come from far away- but then it would be really quite rude. You would miss these old men scowling at you in a line raising their hoes, or the lone boy pretending not to look while hauling a trailer full of junk behind his bike of rust. You would miss the playground of children, who gather round as you play for them.. children always seem to feel so natural hanging at the feet of a musician. 

But I would have missed, if I were asleep on the train, or reading my book on a bus, being so egregiously conspicuous, as in the case of yesterday, a biker rode up to me to ask me to stop for some beers and stories. Which led to his taking me to his village here in Slovakia to meet his parents, and see what life is like in this post-soviet land. 

Communism! I said it, communism! I've been investigating communism and the likes and dislikes about communism and the communist regime and if communism was merely a terrible terrifying tyranny where thoughts were banned and personality shunned or if maybe communism was a better life, where the people paraded proudly, all for all, happiness and comfort abundant.. We all have to go through our communist phase, yes? And it is very fun to write communism communism communism a million times on the internet and see if you get any hassle from those that are so anti tyranny and oppression. But here the term communism is not taboo at all, the subject not at all either. Indeed, people very much enjoy talking about those days, here mostly called 'the good old days'. By 'here' I mean all of these ex-soviet lands which I've covered so far being, (as I am amending much later than Slovakia) eastern Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Croatia, in all of these lands I have asked as many people as I could about their opinion of those times and here I will give a brief summary of my survey.  

I have not had the pleasure to interview any that experienced the really violent Stalinist times, my sample size is a bit limited, especially as even when I meet one of such venerable years, they usually learned Russian, not English in school. So simply by age exclusion what sounds like the worst of the communist era is not really part of my survey.

But the next age group that lived through the later part of it and obviously through the conversion to capitalism are 9 of 10 times say without hesitation that they would want communism back. They tell me of how safe those times were, how safe their children were, how safe their future was and how safe their well being was. That the government raised the standard of living for the majority of people tenfold and that one never had to worry. They speak of the beguiling vision of the west and capitalism as a bamboozlement that stripped them of their basic human needs. The 'freedom!' cry that is typically so persuasive here was not, even in their retrospect, much hankered after at all. The everyday man, the truck driver, the farmer, the shop tender, the majority of which usually don't make enough money to travel very much anyway, were more content with enough food and a functioning house and reliable health care than the right to go to other countries. Now granted this is all coming from a woman who is traveling around the world by bike wanting to see as many cultures as possible and the restriction of my experience to one country or one region would be quite infuriating, but I speak not of my experience. 

The next age group, those born at the end of those times, and that mostly just hear their parents rants and see the after effects, and are aware of the western take of those times generally preface everything by saying 'Well of course communism was terrible and evil and all that', and then go on to summarize the opinion of their parents, above, and add on some thoughts on the resulting ripples. The governments, it sounds like, were a total free-for-all and the people that came to power did so by a combination of brute force and luck, and from what I hear it has somewhat stayed that way. I have heard so many gripes about the current political situation here, where corruption is brazenly ubiquitous. Scandals will reach the news about some politician swindling away millions of dollars and nothing happens. The man not only slips jail, but also somehow retains power. One of my interviewees said that he feels this is partly an aftereffect of the communist era- people were taught to simply accept and not question, and thus they do nothing. Another ripple that has surprised me, and is rather local to my original goal, was how it has effected the gypsy community. Until the communist times the gypsies were still itinerant and actually as such were a much more accepted social group. They were your knife sharpeners, your handymen, your musicians that didn't need a fixed locality and were no competition in the regular work force. But the soviets made homelessness illegal, everyone got a home, everyone got a job. This was against their nature, and something they never took kindly to, but stuck, and now they are in the ghettos of villages and cities. They are seen by the majority of locals as parasites, be they hard working or not, earning their means by legitimate means or not, because of many of the reasons Americans say the same about immigrants. Gypsies are the perpetual immigrants and so always discriminated against, especially when competition in the job market, or too near the home. The little village in Slovakia to which I was whisked away was maybe 1/4 gypsy, all of whom lived together, but a stone's throw away from the slightly less bedraggled area. The proximity seemed an unspoken itch to all concerned. As I biked around that area, the gypsies all stared at me like an alien, though from skin, I looked just like those across the street. But those across the street don't go through that area. It is such harsh segregation here, and racism a blatant root, but we'll get to that later. Their situation is one of those all too familiar cycles of poverty, a culture raised in poverty, and this one notoriously in crime, will teach the younger generations those values, and this way of life, which perpetuates itself. And all over Europe, but especially here in Eastern Europe, the 'natives' complain about the gypsies. It is almost an epidemic to which no government has attempted much of a remedy. An interviewee claimed that the soviets made the only successful attempt at integrating them, or at least raising their standard of living enough so that crime was not necessary. But now their jobs are not ensured, in fact, they are much less likely to get hired than their native competitors because of simple unchecked racism and I suppose because of the locality imposed upon them all by the soviets. 

There was one person in my survey that swore of his hatred of the russians, and his paranoia of their returning and spoke fervently of freedom and I want to say this group certainly exists, especially among those interested in higher education and travel. But on the whole, I got a very different impression of communism from these locals than I learned in school. I always had the impression that communism was a failed attempt here in Eastern Europe and in Russia and I was rather unaware of how functional it actually was, how much it raised the standard of living, how nostalgic people are these days for those. 

And with that I settle the summary of my socialist soviet survey! 

Prague of 1,000 towers, Bohemia of 1,000 hills

Oh you who have always dreamt of a romantic, colorful Europe- each building older than our country, each riverside sunset more lovely than your date- let Prague be the city to keep these dreams alive. If you go to most cities in Germany, you will find a few remnants of this picturesque time, but so much was destroyed in the war, the major cities really haven't retained much of that charm. But Prague, city of 1,000 towers as it is called, lives up to its name. From the Elbe, the main river of which we spoke previously, it may be impossible to count the endless towers, each building boasting at least two just to compliment its flamboyant green or pink. A stroll along the Elbe will certainly demand a careful consideration of the importance of aesthetics  even for one so visually challenged as myself. The eb and flow of the hills as they roll and sweep, sometimes raising a wave of picturesque little towns, houses enjoying their eternal surf towards the sun, and then the trees take over once again to remind the eye where true beauty lies. I hope this isn't too indulgent, I try not to make you jealous, but wet your tongue for what an ideal European city can do to a weak minded tourist like myself.
But enough landscaping! Prague was for me a city of 1,000 hopes as well as towers. My first evening out on the town had me wandering off with my fiddle and banjo, generally deciding the middle would be a good place to start (this is how most of my adventures start). Before really getting anywhere I passed an Irish pub with such a great name I couldn't resist.. it was not your usual 'McKinny's, or McFlinn's, or O'Flannigan's' Really the only thing that determines an irish pub it seems is a Mc or an O in the title, OK and a Guinness sign out front.. let's be reasonable. But O'Che's was the name of this one, with a giant mural of Che Guevara. So I stopped my bicycle and asked if they might need a musician that weekend. Sure enough without hesitation I had a gig on Sunday night. And thus started the long string of hopes that began building up that eve- in Germany this kind of unannounced spontaneous arrival would not have been In Ordnung and I got many a sour face with an email address to conduct any further inquiries. But here, I ask, they accept and done. As I get farther east I am assuming this will be the more profitable kind of busking, and it was a source of great hope for me that already it was so much easier.
So then moseying along I saw a group of youngin's (meaning my age) with instrument cases. I went ahead and imposed my English on them, something I hate to do, but will have to learn to accept. Well they took me rambling through the little back streets of Prague to come out upon my dear friend, the river. On a friday night the waterfront was packed with people, I suppose this is the most natural thing in the world- water is our life source, and being near it is so relaxing, even when this same body a week ago was 10 ft about where we were all sitting, lulled and hypnotized by this twinkling power. But it was above these waves, that another surge of hopes came rushing through me, for I heard the music I've been searching! It was perfect! The first band we passed was so good, I had to stop and allow my friends to disappear, perhaps I had lost them but these sounds could not be missed. This band, accordion, cello, bass, violin, cajon, and all singing, were painting colors with their harmonies. They took songs that to me sounded like traditional Czech, Hungarian, Romanian melodies and put them to wonderful jazz chords with balkan rhythms. It was enchanting! They were doing with Eastern European folk music what I have heard done with American folk music and it was so fun, inspiring and hopeful! I have been told by many that I will not find the gypsies I'm seeking, and that I will not be able to infiltrate those societies in order to learn that music, and that I had better not go. Indeed in Berlin, my experience with the gypsies on the street that I sought out for jams were not playing music I was really that interested in, nor was I very interested in how they treated me.
But I walked on a little farther to see my friends all sitting there, and I coaxed out their instruments.. and the jam that I have been longing for, the jam I thought would never happen, the jam that I have truly been terrified of began. These musicians were incredible, I had stumbled upon a jackpot! They played klezmer, gypsy jazz, balkan, blues, they played for the joy of the motion and the ecstasy of the speed! I have been playing so much old time, where the beat is a bit behind and the groove is relaxed, so to jump onto this rhythm was a whole new animal. The boom chuck boom chuck first seems quite tame, you jump on with great confidence, only to find it rides so different in the gut, and at this speed, if you fall off the train, there's no getting back on.. I fell, with great embarrassment, thinking maybe I had better just watch. But it was irresistible, I had to jump on again, and I grasped for the reigns, and held on a little longer, but again the stallion bucked me off. But a third time I mounted and I felt my gut hone in on the rhythm.. I squeezed my legs and rode for all I was worth, my ears like jugglers- melody, chords, rhythm, melody, chords, rhythm, darting attention a million notes a minute, but not falling off that horse! Oh my, what a ride! And what hope! This was my first real gypsy jam, and I had made it. It was certainly embarrassing in the beginning, but I had come around and figured out some of it, I had started to learn the tunes, my ears began to adjust.. I have been so afraid that it would simply be too hard, but really it's just like old time, just a different language, a different horse. So much hope, and it continued through the rest of my time in Prague, but it came time finally, (after once again staying through too many proposed departures) that I had to hop on my own true stallion and head east for Bohemia!
Now, Bohemia is a term much romanticized and indeed I was so excited to bike through true Bohemia, I guess I was hoping for a whole area of musicians and writers and artists, sipping on wine or absinth? bringing infinite (as art is infinite, no?) beauty into the world.
HA! Perhaps that bit of Bohemia exists somewhere, but all I found were infinite hills.. 1,000 hills and to put my hopes in perspective, 1,000 fears. These last few days biking through the alp run offs have been like a dose of the start of my journey. It hasn't been so much due to the hills, yes they make me more tired, there has been not one stretch of even 1km of flat, it has been only up and down, and mostly really just up.. But that isn't so bad, legs adjust, mentality adjusts. But the little things that happen when you don't understand the language. For example, by now I have lost all my good water bottles, and so I went into a supermarket looking for some good shaped bottles of water that I can keep reusing. I bought 2 huge ones, also knowing I needed a lot of water. I biked off quite content with myself only to realize after the sun has gone down and everything is closed, that I just bought 2 huge bottles of terrible flavored water, with which I must now cook my lentils. I tried to make it better by adding copious amounts of hot sauce (thanks Brian!) but this did nothing for the flavor. I learned that night that sometimes making something spicier does not necessarily mean making it more delicious.. very sad discovery. Also I have now managed to lose my raincoat, and my bike gloves.. actually 2 pairs of bike gloves, and got my first flat of the trip. But life goes on, the road goes on, and Budapest awaits. I believe little periods like this are inevitable and perhaps healthy on this trip. But it is certainly a scary thing looking at that road, always east, always farther from what I know, always farther from the certainty and safety of the west. It does get to you after a little while, all the stories you hear about how dangerous it all is, how crazy I am. I look at that road and realize there are no faces out there I recognize, that as far as that road takes me there will be only new interactions, only introductions, only goodbyes. I am on the road to goodbye, and it is a hard road.
But the smallest things bring such huge sparks- a resting group of cyclers all stand and wave as I ride by, a couple christening a house blow me a kiss, a child dancing and laughing to my fiddle in the park. We have a beautiful race, and I'm reminded of that every day. It is for this fact, for this proof, that I wish to keep biking, that I turn my back to the sun as the day comes to a close, and I rejoice in the morning as I fly into it's shinning face with bell a ringin'!

A Fond Farewell to a Flooded Friend

My last weekend in Germany happened to be during the biggest of Dresden's yearly festivals, to which thousands of merry makers flock to the city from around the country to get their taste of the once small neighborhood (the american equivalent of) block party gone viral. Despite the swarming crowds and the offendingly loud music, the festival somehow retained a bit of its quaint charm. For example on sunday morning, everyone brought out their tables and sofas onto the street and the whole city breakfasted together! I was first blinded to this fact due to being overwhelmed by crowds and the invasion of my soundspace (which has gotten rather fond of my usual woodsy soundtrack). I swam through the streets with banjo and fiddle on my back in hopes of maybe seeing some other acoustic players.. but not a one was to be found amongst this throng of over 10,000 people. About to give up, I decided to try my luck with fiddle in hand. I began to play, waltzing back through the swarm, either playing along with whatever techno beat was blaring, or if the distance allowed it, I played my own tunes. Very quickly I generated long conga lines, all following the paned piper around and about the hiccuping hoopla. Through such means I came across many a wise wizard or slithering snake, but none were so enchanting as a witch I met in a dark deserted park, who heard the wail of my lonesome fiddle and came dancing on up, and then sang right along! She sang with such fire and grace, and this whole trip I have not yet had such a passionate, creative and restorative jam as this and I thank her deeply for her magic!
But the time came to put an end to all this revelry and so I loaded up my steed and biked off.. only for my phone to ring and deliver a plea for my return. Well what is 20 km and another night in Dresden? Well worth turning around, and I suppose this is always an option. But after playing through the night, welcoming the sun with irish and americana fusion, my fourth wind came with a push to get on my bike again, without a wink of sleep, and continue my course.. which is when the real adventure began!
Since Berlin people have been warning me about the Elbe flood, but even in Dresden I hadn't seen much of its wrath, besides that my plan to go swing dancing was foiled because the venue was now in disrepair. But biking through the small towns, it was almost apocalyptic. Everything was destroyed- cafes, houses, churches alike, none were spared. The river does not choose favorites. Every building was empty, often lacking doors and windows; piles of trash lined the bike path and river grass clotted every lamp post. Lamp posts maybe 10 feet tall, and quite a bit above the current riverbed, spitting reeds; benches still drowning in the grass. There in the towns, where nothing was open, wagons took care of the necessities. The bakery had a wagon, a clothing store had a wagon and tents set up, even the butcher and the bank had their own wagons- they were making it work. And you know, I haven't seen people in such a general good mood my whole time in Germany. Maybe it is because of the region, they are happier here, or maybe it is because it is finally summer.. or because communal survival just makes a body of people more jubilant,  more supportive, more generous despite such desperate need. I was so proud of them for this resilience, and later had to rely so much on them for inspiration. As I continued along my jolly way, following my now well acquainted scheming friend, the bike arrow, I came to a gravel road. This being a common occurrence in my couple thousand kilometers already, I thought nothing of it, but slowly the road diminished into a mere ghost of a path. My first challenger was a huge fallen tree completely across my cliff hugging trail. I had to hoist my bike through a gap in its branches, and let me tell you, my rocinante is no petite prince. Then came a wall of bushes that had piled up at the base of a hill, and like sleeping beauty's beloved, I had to slash through the thorny forest with all my might. At last, coming out of the woods, the path descended into what was now an oozing, stinking swamp. So with chin up I took off my shoes, squeezed this delicious muck through my toes, and pushed my loving steed through perhaps 8 kilometers worth of shin deep mud.. sometimes water, singing and ringing my bell all the way. Never have I been so glad to see a hill as that day, one with a glorious paved path up and away from this omnipotent river. How I wished I could teleport all that excess water over my colorado friends, perhaps that would help all those fires! Oh what a time we are entering.
And after all this adventure it was a very unceremonious entrance into a new country. The only indicator at first was the change in style of street sign, then came the change in architecture, and then as people started getting involved, both language and already very obvious cultural norms changed as well. Language not is so much like terrain, it doesn't just blend into the other, as soon as one is across the boarder, there is the new language, all my years of German, now useless. But culturally so far the Czech seem a much more open and friendly bunch with less of an affinity for rules and exactness as their western neighbors. (have you ever seen any sign so cute?)

But alas, though I have poo-pooed this quality in the Germans, and indeed at times more than just that, I will of course miss a great many things about this noble folk. I will miss their honesty, their almost childish bluntness. I will miss their progressive understanding of the world, how highly they respect women and how they value the earth and act accordingly. I will miss their philosophy, how easy it is to bring a German to talk about the abstract, to hypothesize on what if, to neutrally look at the possibility and dimensions of a God. And I will miss all the dear dear friends, new and old, who have always made any sort of generalizations, in the end, futile. We have had many a quarrel and many a laugh, ol Deutschland and I, and I am sad to say it will be a while before we raise a glass again. So Prost, mein guter Freund, until we meet again!

escape from Berlin!!

Dearest reader, if you should ever take an interest in Berlin, indeed if the little curiosity might take you so far as the website of some airline, train line or popular hot air balloon destinations, may I recommend a very strict return ticket, one where there is no opportunity to back out, or change the time.. For if you do not, you may as well quit your job, sell your house and leave your family before ever arriving, for I warn, you may never escape! The story is rampant in Berlin, "I was just passing through", "short work trip", "I just meant to stay the summer", and one by one the flies get caught in the web and 3, 5, 20 years later they are still there, mesmerized by the city's shiny sticky bondage.
This almost happened to me, dear reader, in fact my friends started laughing when I would threaten to leave, so confidant were they that I  would stay. But here I am 100 kilometers away and this will be my last looking back.
Well and what is so sticky about Berlin? The first thing that might get you is the ridiculous conundrum of a city of 3.3 million people that feels like a village. The way the neighborhoods are laid out, the decisiveness of social groups, and a high dosage of serendipity all make it impossible to go a day without running into someone you know, even if you are a mere tourist like myself.
Another draw, or rather glue, is the abundance of artists, musicians, dancers, actors that color this gray dirty city with talent, creativity and intelligence. On my very first day here I saw a man wandering around a fair with a violin case and asked if he wanted to play.. And what luck! I had found a jazz violinist who knew of every jazz jam in the city. I spent much of my time there following him around to these endless nights of music. I was exposed to some really brilliant players who got me so inspired to practice and learn some swing and flamenco! (I believe this may have to wait however) the artists I met were so mind blowing, I hadn't heard such good music in so long and most of it was just at sessions. And they are all making so little.. Sometimes they are even lacking proper appreciation. But the insistence of these artists to stay and fight to survive is either a very romantic notion, or simply more proof that one cannot leave.
The history of the city is also proof, how no country would leave it's hand out of Berlin, no one could give up on it. You see the aftermath of this still definitely in the architecture but even more in the parks. Where in west Berlin you might have Victoria park, with lovely winding pathways, cozy- for maybe 3 people in a line- snaking up a mountain to look over the  city- giving anyone who took the energy to walk up the mountain the feeling of a king surveying his land. Then in the east you have treptower park. There the sidewalks are huge, wide enough for a parade of 1000 soldiers. The trees are all identical and in straight lines. Instead of climbing up a mountain, the park rises up around and above you, huge statutes of solders or mothers loom overhead and even the sky seems to tell you that you are merely a tiny cog in this huge triumphant machine.
Well while stuck here, I had to of course earn my keep.. And this began the turf wars. It is interesting being technically a tourist, but joining forces with those that earn their living off of tourists. A silly identity crisis. I certainly have it easier than my gypsy colleagues, for the tourists trust me  more (due to being white) and therefore give more money.. And in the beginning the gypsies didn't believe my act and asked me constantly for money while I was playing.. But by the end all of the gypsy mamas knew me and smiled as they walked by. I knew the kids better, though. They were so sweet, even after I, sometimes quite forcefully, said they could not have my euros, they laughed and smiled and one little boy just really wanted to play my fiddle. Every day he asked and I finally complied. It seemed he thought it a toy that once he held it, it would make the same sounds. Discovering that this was not the case, he looked from the fiddle to me and back and returned it with a shrug. Over the next couple weeks he got a few more tries, but his mother always yelled for him to come before we could make any progress. She needed his sweet face for better money. It is sad to see them carted around like that and I wonder if they will do the same to their children, if this is another unbreakable cycle. Sometimes tradition isn't so helpful. It is also interesting, the women and children ask for money on the streets while the not-young-enough-to-be-cute boys to men play instruments on the street. Two such boys were often out with a melodica and a saxophone and a few times I played with them and we wandered around looking for good terrasses to play for. The did not seem to make much money at all, though the kid on the sax was really quite good, and I wonder who makes more, the women or the men?
After three weeks of seminocturnal living, it seemed an early night if the sun wasn't up yet, my body finally insisted it needed a break. I realized after staying through 3 preset departures the only way to escape would be abrupt and final. I packed up my bike and set off to the joyous sound of my wonderful first friend there- the French jazz violinist. As his song was lost to the wind, I felt the tears welling up, but I flapped by little wings as hard as I could, Berlin could not hold me!!
It did make one more unexpected attempt, however, as I was biking through a tiny little town just after sunset. "Haste ne halbe stunde zeit?" (Have a half hour of time, in the equivalent of a Kentucky accent) well this was of course the perfect question because time is just about all I have. A hoard of men sat on the balcony of a beautiful hotel drinking and laughing and insisted I come up with my fiddle, for one had a guitar. Well I'll never turn down a jam, and a proper hootenanny took over! We all sung along to so many songs of my childhood and theirs, niel young, Beatles, Pete Seeger and they begged me to stay, threatened to chain me up and make me play every night. They were all so sweet and i at least agreed to stay the night in this lovely hotel, but then I had to be going. The road was calling so off I went. Today I haven't made it far, leaving Berlin time is worst than jet lag, but I've made it. And now, dear reader, starts the exciting part of my journey, for I am now finished visiting friends. I have found the rhythm for biking, I have found the routine for camping, and have found the internal strength for experiencing new cultures and people but keeping a vital part of myself alive and present. I feel ready, and I'm glad to have you to bring along. So let's go!

A Catalonian Cantada

Even now that I am once again on my way, I feel the magnetism of the Mediterranean waves and the wonder a new eye downs in while beholding a truly magical city. Barcelona has taken a piece of my soul and I leave it with them gladly, I would never want to take it back.
The magic began for me when I met a sorceror in a Gothic style alley who was bringing wood and cloth to life! He danced and this beautiful little friend of his danced with him! She was so graceful and enchanting but so sad! She had no music! I felt the ache in her little heart and pointed to my fiddle questioningly as they moved. He nodded and soon the three of us were telling a story, each filling in the next word, the next leg of the journey.
That night I met another little friend of his, niccolo... Paganini! Well I had no idea Mr Paganini was such a charmer. While the dancer captivated the audience and lulled them into a trance, niccolo made them laugh and bounce. The children adored the little violinist and would often reward him with a slobbery kiss.. But there was one boy who was truly in love. He would not continue down the street with his parents, but insisted on dancing and dancing and dancing with little niccolo. He hugged and kissed him and told him secrets. Niccolo was first shy, and hid behind my friend Remo.. but Remo convinced him slowly that the boy meant no harm and the little violinist returned the hugs. Delighted, the boy took a picture of Niccolo and showed him his portrait on the camera as if it were just between them. I have never seen anything so adorable and wished as I played that I too could learn to bring such joy and mystery.
And to my delight and surprise my wish was granted the very next day. Elly and I decided as dutiful tourists, we simply had to endure the torture of the beach. So, begrudgingly, we basked in the glorious sun, we floated in the perfectly cool sea, we might have been dragged away to the chamber of bliss up in the clouds, but for the squawking primarily Indian drink sellers. Imagine, if you will a seagull that could only produce the sounds "mojito sangria cola lite!" Or "cold drinks, water, cold beer, coca cola!" (Always rt he exact same tone and melody, if you can call it that). Now this seagull had a family of similar sounding offspring and the whole flock of them, maybe 100, take to the tourists because sometimes they get a piece of shiny crispy bread. These drink sellers were also as shameless add seagulls, and waved their wares in your face, literally, as if this would make their feathers more attractive..
And to drown out this obnoxiousness I decided I might as well play my fiddle. I was enjoying myself so much I hardly noticed the thing scurrying towards me. It came closer and closer and finally surfaced above the sand maybe 15 feet away from me.. Staring intently.. I smiled and the sand monster scootched 5 feet closer. I thought to protect myself and my sister, I had better please the sandy beast and play something silly and quite intimidating. But he scootched closer and closer still until if I moved one inch forward, my scroll would had have hit his fierce nose! He laughed and after sitting and grinning through at least 3 tunes, he suddenly got up, spraying me with sand and I thought we were safe now.. But no! Instead he comes back with his whole tribe of mini sand monsters and now I had a dozen eyes all fixed on me. I laughed and they with me.. Soon they were kicking a ball around Elly and I, but my discoverer stayed put laughing and clapping at me and burying his cookies. I asked him his name and first he ran away, but then he came back and shouted'Raphael!' And started babbling at me in French. Did you know sand monsters spoke French? It seemed like an oxymoron, but there it was.. And I made the mistake of introducing him to the kazoo, upon which he was a virtuoso and accomplished my original mission (drowning out the seagulls) much better than I could have even dreamt, his mother, however, was not impressed not pleased. Oops. But I realized as she dragged him away that my wish had been granted. That this joy bringing is a gift I have, but it is simply so easy to forget since it feels so selfish as I play.
Which brings me to my last adventure- the best Irish jam I've ever been to. And of course for any city to properly command a visitor's love, it must be the locals that wield the sword. This adventure is not a crazy story, the musicians were not odd nor extraordinary, albeit of course very talented and fun. But the people in this jam, especially this beautiful fiddle player, opened up their hearts to me and allowed me to see the deep radiance of the city, the warmth, The color, the grace. It is because of these heralds that I will not only never forget Barcelona. But I must also return. For I need these compadres to help me tell this story, to dance out the next chapter, to see how the journey will continue.

Dance into May!

This was the German welcome to this long awaited month. All over the country, kids and adults alike were shakin their booties in jubilation, the prodigal sun has returned! May 1st is a day, too, for the young German boys to display their love. Late the last night of April, they chop down trees from the forest, decorate them and then stand them up in front of the window of their sweetheart, for her (or him) to wake into a new May morning with a beautiful tree symbolizing the affection that has grown in some anonymous boy's heart. My bike through the German countryside on April 30th, so, was filled with the laughter of birds, the triumphant sun and the myriad of colors on banners and ribbons dancing in the wind. I myself had a little butt wiggle as I collapsed into my little party hut I found by the side of the road:

(my silly squashed tent)

So after the dance of the citizens and the lovers comes May 1st, the European labour day. This day has become a very political one in Germany, as the glorification of workers and their rights and their unification is a very leftist idea, and the right parties feel they must hold some demonstration to claim the day as theirs. And in reaction, the left parties must counter with more rallies against the right. It goes so: the right parties have a march, the left parties try to blockade them and drown out their voice, the police then come and try to protect the poor helpless conservatives since they have just as much a right to protest as anyone else. This inevitable squabble has lead many Germans to call it simply a day of protest, where each individual can hold his own protest against whatever he feels is currently amiss in the government or society. I, naturally, had to then find my own cause for ringing my bell in protest as I biked my long day into Bremen. (My bell, which was gifted me by the wonderful Fireman family, has also been my go to for when I start feeling discouraged. When my knees hurt or I feel the tears welling up, I ring the bell as loud and as long as I can until I am smiling like a fool.)
Well, a matter I was aware of only as a stereotype, but in my long years of living in Germany never experienced earnestly, has become a terribly frustrating reality for me- the abundance and adoration of rules. The Germans use rules not only for order and protection, but also as an excuse for avoiding anything out of the ordinary. Anything from the addition of a fiddle on a train, to plugging my phone in in a cafe. They use rules as a way of being polite, as a polite negative. They also try to use rules as an excuse for why something may be impossible. When I want to bike 150km in a day with all of my things, they say 'das macht man nicht' - 'one doesn't do that', literally translated, but this phrase is also used when someone is sticking out or breaking rules. They tell me constantly that I will never achieve my goal, that it is too far, that I am crazy. They adore their peace and order, and will call the police on 2 string instruments playing in a park (not even for money) at 3 in the afternoon because we've played over half an hour. One is allowed to play for half an hour at a time, then must stop, and give the surrounding tormented a break. There is a passive aggressiveness here, where people have no problem reporting someone, I have been kicked out of my busking stations over 15 times already, but never has anyone ever dared tell me for themselves that my violin was too loud for them. It is in protest of this infuriating silence, this disdain for the new, this negativity, these rules, that I ring my bell loud and clear. I ring and I ring and attract the grumpy looks of all Germans for kilometers around and I ring some more. There is little that cheers me up more than pissing off the Germans.
Of course I have experienced delightful hospitality and kindness from Germans as well. Along with their insistance that I cannot make whatever distance I have set out for myself, they often offer their couch or floor as another reason I should just stop. I have also been very well received on the street by those that have not complained about how annoying it is- I have been asked to record, to play gigs, to be flown to Portugal to play for a weekend! They have been awfully generous with their Euros on the street and with their honesty but also respect in the home.
And now I am enjoying the delightful company of my little sister, Eleanor, who I have missed tremendously for the whole last year. She is studying abroad in Hamburg and I am so proud of her strides in the language and in her understanding of the world and herself. We fly tomorrow to Barcelona where we will rampage the town and show the spanish the flair of the Thomas family sisters!