Great experience. I stayed with a host the weekend before school started. Her name was Anna and she was definitely one of the strongest, physically and mentally, girls I've ever met. Especially considering she was only nineteen. A very admirable and remarkable young woman really. She was national champion once in judo, an amazing rock climber, a great friend, and on the whole has the most open minded personality of anyone I've met on this trip so far. She had just got back from three weeks in Israel where she had couch surfed the whole way through, and felt it was time for her to reciprocate. That is why her first weekend back she took on two couch surfers from two different places. Ezmond stayed with us as well. He was a very courteous, respectful, and curious kid from Singapore, studying in Australia on an exchange in debark, traveling on his weekend. It was like my own little buddy the whole weekend when Anna had work one day, and when she took us out with her friend.
The first night I got a little lost looking for her apartment. She was genuinely worried, and was up at one when I finally found my way there. We stayed up and talked, she had work the next afternoon. Ezmond and I did the quick tourist bit, of wandering around to ambunch of pretty buildings snapping pictures of random shit we didn't know the significance of, and so on. This is why I have begun couch surfing if you get thendrift. Pretty city after pretty city just start to look the same and blend together without some real experiences to stand out. I much more prefer getting to know people from somewhere and understanding a deeper layer of it, or else you never truly do experience and see a place. One really neat place, however, that I had read about and dragged Ezmond across town to find, was this architectural little village and gallery by the artist hunderwasserhaus. Asians are good with maps too, it was awesome not having to think for myself for once. I had a little Getty guide that was on top of everything. I contributed my knowledge of the underground when needed however. Huderwasserhous, is an architect who design these colorful funky apartment building and little town centers. He only has a few around Europe. They are so neat, with curvy ceilings, brick and tile floors that are all uneven and humped up with mound, and crooked pillars. He also has some paintings and retro artwork that are on display in his galleries. It was much neater than even expected. We made it back by seven to meet Anna to get directions by underground to her friends party. She would ride her bike everywhere. Surprise, another European town where everyone rides a bike.
The party was a lot of fun. Most people in Vienna speak English, or at least a little. They are also, very sweet. Even the old lady on the subways when I arrived was hugging up on me and pat me on the back when I left. We did not speak a word of the same language haha, I am assuming she thought I was cute and was wishing me good luck. Everyone at the party would interchange German with English, and even when an in-depth conversation was going on at least one person, even if I hadn't met them officially yet, would let me know what was being said, or just start a conversation with me themselves. I found myself genuinely laughing at Anna s one, particular animated, friend Jan (yan), then realizing he wasn't even speaking English. It was quite neat seeing how people can still interact even when you aren't vocally communicating. It is something kind of taken for granted when you never have to pay much attention to people's composure, body language and facial expression to develop an opinion on them, or get a feel for their personality. Things can be sensed, much more than they can be understood through words I think. Anyways, Jan was very good at speaking English. They say if you can get to a point with a foriegn language where you can understand humor and make someone laugh you can consider yourself fluent. Well, Jan in is regard was very fluent. In Vienna there is nothing but cheesy Viennese soup operas, so as explained to me, most all of them download sitcoms and American television shows illegally, and that is how they make the transition from school taught English, to slang and conversational English. Jan was even saying that when he wants to use smart ass remarks he finds that he thinks of what they are in English then has to translate them to German. They too he says are brainwashed by the box, and attributes it to the downfall of his mother tongue. He also wears baggy jeans past his boxers and listens to rap. So to sum it up a white blond with a German accent, talking hood slang, and thinking that he is a character straight out of "how I met your mother". We clicked right away. Anna s ex was also very sweet and a lot of the other people. A lot of girls shave their heads for the, and. A lot of the guys have dreads or long hair. I got the sense they were like the hippie crowd. If only I had realized. The next night would have made much more sense.
The following day we went rock climbing, or bould at her gym. Anna is a very strong rock climber. The gym didn't have ropes just challenging courses to train you form and two floors covered with different rocks and techniques. The furthest you could far was about ten feet on to soft mats. I loved it, I hadn't been climbing in a while, Ezmond had a bit of a challenge. They never put us in the system so it was free when we left three hours later. Went to anna s favorite restaurant right around the corner on the otherwise of her building. Eat all you want pay as you wish. You just leave like three or four euro when you leave. It was all sorts of curry s, rice and dessert. Anna s a vegetarian too. We had made plans to go to a trance party with her and some of her friends that night. I didn't really know what I was in for. I knew it was a bit like electronic. Anna goes to a lot of the festivals for this all throughout the summer. She had freshly shaved one third of her head the night before, geared up in her genie pants, bracket anklets and slipper shows. I had jeans and a t-shirt. A bit out of place. It was held in a huge brewery with one stage for house, one for electron and another for trance. Anna loves trance music. It is called trance for a reason, and I will explain further on.
We got in a little early with the cheaper admission. You wander through this gigantic complex, kind of like a factory, and past all the different stages Nd rooms. What I gathered is house is for weird jacked up electro dancers and they get very aggressive. Techno and electronic wS more people just clubbing and grooving. Trance wS a whole different scene. Let me begin by explaining my first impression. It is like the hippies of techno music. If you take the sixty year old burnouts from a grateful dead tribute, combine them with the thirty year old hippies from a phishing concert, and throw in an electronic dance club you get trance. It was like a combo of LSD and ecstasy. The music would mellow out then intensify and the projectors would go nuts and the screen in front would have crazy scenes flashing and dancing. Honestly, I think a lot of them were taken from the discovery channel special Life. Everyone was for sure on edibles, I suppose we weren't the only ones who had a good baker in our group. Every time is started to dance with some rhythm I'd have to catch myself and start kicking out a leg or something to fit in with whatever grooving nature techno dance was going on in this fucking place. I couldn't focus on anything for two long or else I would have broke out in hysterics. Just play along. For as much as every single person in the room was dancing no one touched. Getting through the crowd was so peaceful. You just had to touch someone on the shoulder and they would casually. slide to the side without breaking there groove. it was like I was Moses splitting the Red sea. Poor analogy I know, but it did cross my mind. Everyone was literally in a trance. When the music would climax, I shit you not, everyone would do the same exact thing and all look up like they were orgasming at the same time. Unreal man. When people from the different electronic scenes mixed it was extremely peculiar. For never being to one of these, you could still see right away that someone did t belong. When people would come down and start there crazy intense house break dancing thing, all the trance people, would calmly bob to the otherwise and keep on going. With all that said, I loved it. Strange yes, peaceful fun atmosphere, absolutely. Managed to find our way home by five. Ezmond was even grooving, but I don't think he had ever experienced or tried anything like that. I grew very fond of this west littl guy by the en of our trip.
The next day when we woke up, Anna had us paint something on her apartment walls to remind her of us. The apartments a very old Vienna style, with high ceiling and huge doors, and massive bedrooms, with no common area but hallways to get from room to room. Very nice. Ezmond painted something in Chinese. I painted a sailboat, and she asked me to put a surf board on it, so I painted on a yellow one like the one I used to have. It made me homesick for a minute, but not in a bad way. We then headed out to get ice cream at her favorite shop. Ezmond had to catch a train, and Jan and Lucas, Anna s ex came to meet us to go to the park for the rest of the afternoon. I was going to go see the palace, but like said, enough tourist stuff for me. Jan used his city bike card to get one of the city bikes for me and we all biked through Vienna, at about a million miles per hour it felt like to me on a cruiser, and headed to the park. It was massive. Literally one of those tight rope walking things between every two trees. We just hung out and enjoyed the afternoon, while Lucas and I played frisbee for about two hours straight. He is kind of like a sweet little kid. Made plans go come visit me in Hawaii, that will probably never happen like all the other, but still is fun to imagine. I left to go pack and shower. Anna showed up before I left and made me a grilled cheese for dinner. Then off to the train station, where no I did not leave, but was told the train does not leave until eight the following morning. Almost eleven thirty, so I just kept my fingers crossed that Anna was still awake. Hot back, and thankfully the apartment building door was still open. None of her roommates were home and her room is furthest from the door and has thick walls. I knocked a few times, then used her Internet again to try to see if she had a number she gave me. By this point a girl that had must moved in across the hall walked up and say me with my bags knocking and offered her phone. No number. She without hesitation invited me into her apartment, showed me the couch, said farewell after a little chat, and good luck on your travels. I left at seven this morning and at four thirty in the afternoon I am still on the train. I slept all the way to Ljubljana Slovenia where it took a break to be cleaned before the last three hours of the trip.
Everyone in Slovenia seemed really sweet, and was very helpful when I was trying to figure out what was going on. The screens that would usually tell you what platform to go to were half blown out, and the cleaning ladies couldn't tell me why I had to inboard the train that I had been under the impression went straight through to Rijeka Croatia without a transfer. I had initially planned on a night and afternoon in Ljubljana, and thought if there wasn't really a train this won't be half bad. That was of course until the teenage boy coming out of the girls bathroom spun right back around as I walked by, with a drooling face and half opened eyes, grabbed his junk and started making a humping motion. I flipped obviously and he walked away. I wasn't really scared just disturbed haha. There were people all around. Although i had a sense he was still around so when I came out I was holding the heaviest object I could and took a good swing at him just to really get my point across. Then casually walked up to my train where a sweet old Scottish man and I waited for our train to Croatia, unmarked, to be finished getting clean. I am excited to head straight for the ocean. I train leaves tomorrow at 5 in the afternoon, with a three hour layover at midnight half way, then continues down to split on the peninsula, where I hope to hear back from the twenty nine American couple I am in contact with. My hosts have written me really good recommendations so far, because I usually clean and cook breakfast, so I think they will at least see that and take me in.
I am excited for some outdoor activity. The weather is beautiful, the ocean is warm still, and even the capital which I will head inland for a day to see, and catch a train out, has a beautiful national park right outside with waterfalls and hiking trails.
Take Care. I will keep in touch as much as possible. Love you.
-Sierra
P.s. This is the second time a Croatian police officer has come into our cabin to check our passports. Maybe they want to be sure that the other blond girl and I are not smuggling anything or being smuggled ourselves. Somewhat intimidating and comforting at the same time.
Ok wow. So I'm to Rijeka. Had to do some bargaining with the apartment owner at the train station to get a room. I am in eastern Europe now, hostel are sparse if any. Between me and another backpacking family from Berlin, we are splitting a tiny studio apartment, I'm on the love seat in the living room, for 45 a night. I pay fifteen. The guy Bosho is hilarious. He gave us a grand tour of the town, along the harbor, on our walk. He is an old sailor. When we got to the apartment the water is off the washing machine is getting installed, but it's a place to put my bag and sleep. The family is so cute, even the little girl has her own rucksac. I want to be like that someday haha. They are sweet, and have no problem letting me crash in the hallway slash kitchen. Doesn't hurt looking innocent. The town is small and quant, but I'm a street away from the ocean and an hour bus from the island Kurt. Head over there tomorrow, or just a beach near town and make my way to split.
Bosho is ridiculous, finding both me and the German family, all over town. This city is far too small. I think he's getting. Kick out of it.
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