Flying solo...

Like a bird firstly spreading it's wings, leaving the safety of it's nest, I left the safety of my fabled wolfpack companions- Dan and Pip.

IN BRIEF
First stop on the last legs of this adventure was

Milano
to see my friend Angelo (a guy that I met whilst in Edinburgh). This was quite a whirlwind adventure as I arrived was whisked back to Angelo's apartment, taken in to see the Duomo, Castle etc etc... before jumping in a car and driving out to Pavia to see Franco Battiato in concert!!! What, I hear you say? That means nothing to you, well, me neither. But he was HUGE in the 70's, 80's and 90's. He is like the John Farnham of Italy... This is the song where everyone went nuts! Of course, I have no idea what it's about, but it was definitely my favourite...

Wandering myself around the art museums/galleries of Milano I was just astonished by how fabulous everyone was. Walking around in pressed stream-lined Italian suits, drinking expressos, smoking cigarettes and I swear that Italian women have something to do with funding the entire high-heel shoe industry... It's all so alluring that it almost convinces me to buy a packet of Camels and reduce my diet to only calorie-negative celery. Though this thought may have also occurred to me when my host Angelo described me as both 'liking food a lot' and 'eating like a man' (actual quotes).
Other then that I managed to get to the Milan Film Festival and see a documentary called You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days in Guantanamo Bay, which left me so angry and furstrated about 'the injustice of it all', but was also super well done... Check it: http://www.youdontlikethetruth.com/
Anywho, moving right along. I said goodbye to Angelo and made my way for...

Venice

where I was kindly given my key, walked up to my room, swung open the door and screamed! Those who know me well will know that I have an irrationally large fear of birds (it's just their beaks, you never know what they're going to do... poke your eye out!?). Nevertheless, I was greeted by my two new roomies, two pidgeons, who had been bunkering down in my room for a while now as there was shit everywhere...I think pidgeons are out for me. First food poisoning, now this... nevertheless, various bird-flapping/pointing to my room hand gestures later, the hostel staff had given me a new room... So anyway, Venice... the museum of a city, where I spent most of my time at the Venice Biennale (one of the largest art festivals in the world), but more on that later. I also managed to get seriously lost a fair few times, get myself out on the town in Santa Margherita, taste some mean pina coladas and fall asleep on late night buses (so nothing new).

Next up I subjected myself to a terrible night-train which found me lying on the ground underneath some seats for nigh on 6 hours. But all in order so that I could get to
Munich 
where I had a day in which I think I experienced every emotion. Let me break it down:
Exhaustion: arriving at 6am in the morning and remembering straight away it's the first day of Oktoberfest, so everyone is walking around in leiderhosen and sucking back on their morning beers. I head straight for the waiting room.
Panic/Great Distress: As I realise that I've lost my Eurail Pass, a document that is possibly worth hundreds of euros.
Embarrassment: As I begin to cry when the Lost and Found Officer explains to me that they can't get anything off the train until Monday.
Elation: As I realise an hour later that I just left it in the waiting room.
Excitement: At seeing all the opening Oktoberfest Opening Ceremony in the main square of Munich.
Despondency/Heavy Heartedness: As I made my way to Dachau concentration camp and learnt about it's history.
Awe/Excitement: As I wandered around Oktoberfest, making friends with those who were in the 'too hard too early' basket (see below, picture taken 3pm).

Nevertheless, time was a ticking and I didn't have any accommodation in Munich, so I caught the train to

Vienna
in order to meet up with the one and only Pip McIlory, your friend next door from the company Elevate Education.
Finally realising that Europe does actually get cold, Pip and I rugged up and braved the elements. And yes, I loved Vienna-how typical. Loved wandering the markets. Loved seeking out all the architecture from the Viennesse Succession. Loved the Museumsquartier. And LOVED the free concert tickets Pip and I managed to score from a home connection. Yes please!

At the Viennesse Secession building.
All too soon our little honeymoon was over. I said goodbye to Pip who was off to Siena for University whilst I was heading further north and getting down Czech Republic style in...

Prague
rockin' up at my hostel at around 12 midnight, I was quickly whisked away to the oldest pub in Europe (supposedly), where I delved into the finest of Czech beers. Three days later I've seen a few more beverage establishments, eaten some seriously good Goulash, had a run in with the Czech postal service and fallen for the comincally ironic art of bad boy Czech artist David Černý, who makes works that look a little something like this:

Anywho, Prague-that's where I am now! So I'm finally up to date and about to munch down some breakfast and make my way to Berlin! Can not wait! Hope all's well in your land. Thanks for reading.

 POINTS OF INTEREST
Venice Biennale

Finally, I was there, the Venice Biennale. Ticket in hand I readied myself for a serious few days of art.
And it was... ok. Whilst I had expected to be absolutely blown away, I only found that there was just a few things that I really liked.
Furstrating was my slight death wish towards contemporary art and it's obedience to Barthe's Death of the Author. No, didactics aren't cool, but yes, sometimes contemporary art needs a bit of context and just throwing someone in to interpret in their own way sometimes makes everything into an indecipherable mess. ESPECIALLY the Italian Pavilion... I could have cried at how terrible that was. This was actually in the exhibition:

yes, a globbular red Italy shaped crucifix, need I say more.

Triennale's Options of Luxury exhibition, Milano
This was the most ridiculous exhibition I have every seen. I actually thought it was a joke. It describes itself as following the 'evolution of luxury goods'. I'm not even sure if words can actually describe what they presented you with. It was just like this huge journey, which didn't really make a great deal of sense... but you walked through all these rooms, where computer graphics screamed slogans at you like 'Food is Art' and 'Luxury surpasses the ordinary'... Different rooms included an elaborately reconstructed designer dressing room, a hall of masks where you looked in to see potential 'desires' (see below) in front of you (embarrassingly, these desires included such steroetypes as 'travelling to South East Asia' and 'buying that designer handbag') and a make-shift island which showed the 'luxury of the future' compelte with folk rolling around in orb balls and having rave parties in caves...

There was actually one room where you got an ipad and wandered into a GIANT handbag and pretended like you were going around in this persons handbag whilst they walked around... what!? I am not sure if I have done this justice, but I am still bewildered about this.
ART-WANK
-Museo Novecento, Milan: Glad to finally get into an Italian Art Museum for free, this place was well done. All modern Italian art. Favourites included Boccioni.
-Triennale Design Museum- What is Italian Design?- And awesometeractive exhibition where you got to lounge around in all the fabulous furniture... so many famous pieces such as the Lips Sofa, Spaghetti Chair etc. example:

-Venice Biennale (see above)
-Peggy Guggenheim Collection-really well done museum, which highlights an important part of the art industry that is often overlooked. Collectors and gallerists have played an instrumental role in defining the direction for art (money is power). So great to walk around Peggy's old digs and see not only her collection of mostly abstract expressionist art, but also pictures of her lazying around next to the grand canal, looking fabulous.
-Palazzo Fortuny-TRA- still undecided about this one. This was a very new and innovative curatorial approach which blended together East/West contemporary art, artefacts into a house-like museum.
-Leopold Museum- Biggest collection of Egon Schiele in the world. Fanstastically explained and well put together. Nice one Vienna.
-MUMOK-Vienna's Modern Art Museum. Intense explanations for explaining the tough topics of minimalist and conceptual works.
-Museum of New Art, Prague- an art museum that I randomly just walked into and was super impressed. Just opened in Jun 2011, this is a professional space not only for their collection but for various higher education organisations to show work. Up and coming and exciting, nice one. It also houses Cerny's Shark and Guns. Nice.
-David Černý sculpture- it covers Prague, so gives a really nice feel to all the public spaces and shows off a bit of Czech humour.

Heading East (or getting out of the Schenghen Zone)

IN BRIEF

So from Italy (as I take it where my last update left off) we headed the call of the East, where even the non-smoking rooms smell like nicotine. First stop:

Belgrade
for the Belgrade Beer Festival, or the Poor Man's Oktoberfest, as we liked to name it.
Now there's not actually a lot that I can pad out about things that we did in Belgrade... because, well, there's not a lot there to do. Seriously, we tried. But being there from the 16th till the 21st of August, all we managed was to see the military museum, decide against viewing some serious breaching of Animal Rights at the Serbian Zoo, attempt to find a book about Eastern Europe, make scrambled eggs, drink lots of coffee and attend the beer festival. Sorry Belgrade.
But the Beer Fest was still pretty good... Picture a free-entry fair ground with over 75 beers on offer (all around 1 euro for a pint), beer pong, show rides and a HUGE stage which is graced by the likes of Serbian's best rock music, the drummer from the Ramones (can anyone say old, drug-abused looking over the hill musician....?) and a Blues Brothers Tribute Band (my personal favourite, who managed to stay on till 4am... crazy Serbia)... anywho, here's a visual.

So after all this song and dance we went Bosnia-ward... venturing right into the heartland, firstly through Sarajevo to
Mostar
Famous for its bridge which was destroyed in the 1990's conflict. We were only there long enough to stand in awe at the beautiful mountains and rivers surrounding the town and to realise that Bosnia is Beautiful... or as Dan liked to express it 'Bosnia ticks all the boxes' or 'Bosnia-Underrated and Most Improved Award'. Leaving there we headed for
Konjic
a small town inbetween Mostar and Sarajevo. Getting off the bus we were greeted by a man who spoke no English, but some how managed to explain that he would take us to our lodging, which just happened to be situated right on a beautiful lake, where NO TOURISTS GO. What a luxury. The next morning we were picked up in a van and taken to Neretvera River where we donned the wetsuits they gave us for our White-Water Rafting Adventure! Meeting our shirtless (read sexy) guide Selcuk, we jumped in and were off. Here's Dan and Pip on our Badzo Raft adventure:



So after a cruisy day down the river, some rapids and compulsory screaming on my part, we went for a lake swim ate some Bosnian pie and swapped opinions on whether this was the best day of our trip thus far... mutual decision concluded it was definitely up there.
Driving to the bus stop the next day, we were on the way to

Sarajevo
and this was where the history lesson really begun. Obviously we were all interested in the 1990's conflict, but didn't really understand it, and Belgrade hadn't really offered up a lot of information... But here we really got into history AND food. Bosnia dished up both in great spades. The most eye-opening experience was a war tour we went on, organised through the hostel... More on that in the 'Points of Interest Secion'. Other then that we went to the Tunnel Museum. This places houses the Tunnel that was built underneath the airport (the only neutral space during the Siege of Sarajevo) which was used to get supplies in and out of Sarajevo.

With only a limited time frame in Sarajevo, we ventured back through Belgrade (which was a very different experience the second time around, understanding the history quite a bit better only a week alter) and right on through to

Timisoara, Romania!
Where we started our ROADTRIP BABY!!!
Picking up our Skoda the next day, the first few hours of driving had us questioning the full extent of the insurance policy we had got... Did it, for instance, cover us for collisions with horse and cart/cattle/old woman/other crazy Romanian drivers who overtake up to 10 cars around corners, on a single lane highway when it's dark (this is no joke).
Our first night was spent camping out and crapping ourselves for fear of what lay behind the distant yelling, dogs barking and other strange Romanian noises. We concentrated around Transylvania where the mountains are high, the valleys low and the roads are rough (well actually, I think that's all over Romania). Hitting up Sibui, Bran (home to Dracula's Castle), Sinaia, Brasov, Sighisoara and Cluj-we had a fair few car hours under our belt. We managed to drive up the Tranfagarasan (see the In Detail section), which is an absolutely mental road up the side of a mountain range, camp climb some seriously steep hills (including the 'Seven Steps to Death', which left us literally clinging via a chain to the side of a mountain), get some great views and get lost on the dreaded 'white roads' (all in only a few hours). Here's a picture of our lunch spot:

Ending up in Cluj-Napoca a student town in the North West, we did some couch surfing (in detail below) and then separated ways as I left the Roadtrip for Pastures in the land of Hungary... namely

Budapest
Where I was for not nearly long enough, but where I managed to hit up the main sites... The House of Terror to learn about the Nazi and Communist years, Buda and Pest, The Palace, Ruin bars and, of course, the baths (below) where you shake off that groggy feeling from the night before and have fun switching between the 80 degree sauna and the 16 degree plunge pool (freezing!)

Quick stop, gotta go, off to...
Ljubliana (capital of Slovenia)
and yes, Slovenia is probably not regarded as Eastern Europe (as a book shop lady so rudely pointed out to Pip in Belgrade), but for ease of writing, it is for this blog.
There I met up with Dan and Pip and we all met a crazy guy called Maryn (see further details below). We ventured out to Lake Bled, which must seriously be made for tourists- a beautiful lake with a island with a church on it in the middle. We fitted in some bike-riding in the Triglav park, some casino-ing, some winning at roulette and some self-congratulatory cosmopolitans (Dan's favourite) to wish Pip and goodbye as she left for Croatia the next day!
Back in Ljubliana for a day or two we checked out the Hippy Commune and managed to run into Julia Walsh AND see a concert of the Wombats and the Editors (which just happened to be playing! Crazy)...

Wishing Dan a goodbye as I got my trainto Milano, and started flying solo... but more on that in a few days... Bye for now. This has been a long one. Thanks for listening

POINTS OF INTEREST

 War Tour-Sarajevo

It's hard to explain this tour without putting in a totally frustrating didactic explanation of the confusing history of the conflict. Leaving that, I'll just explain that Sarajevo was in 1984 the host of the Winter Olympic Games and by 1992 under seige from Bosnian-Serb troops.

 The hostel we stayed at was owned by a Sarajevan war veteran. Now, his English wasn't so great, so he told his son, who was 20 and much better at English, all of his stories from the war, and his son took us on the tour. He drove us up into the hills around Sarajevo and showed us the barracks that the Serbs used, as well as the old bob-sled course which was then used as a second-front-line by the Serbs and was now left in total disrepair (below).

Everywhere we walked Jan told us stories of where his father and his father's friends had faught, and gave us a run down of the hardship and history surrounding the whole battle.

Everywhere we went he pointed out landmines which were just left littering the countryside and told us about some of the cruelest war crimes committed during the 3 year seige. He also walked us through a huge minefield, the no-man's land, between the two front lines, warning us not to step off the path for the surety we would step on a still-active mine.

So obviously it was pretty harrowing to hear all these stories, and unimaginable to think that such a thing could have occurred in Europe, in the 90's, in the age of the internet... but there's no use dabbling in hind-sight..

I think the most interesting message that Jan left us with was his complete lack of belief in patriotism, nationalism or religion. From what he'd seen, it had only been used to divide people, to urge them to commit crimes upon one another and to allow him to grow up in a war zone. As he put it 'There's no use in patriotism, everyone runs when they see a tank coming towards them'.

The Transfagarasan

So whilst flitting around in Romania's Dracula country we managed to stumble on what Top Gear has voted to be 'The World's Best Road' (no biggy... watch below)... The Transfagarasan... or as we liked to call it, 'The Transfag'...

So this is what the road looks like on a map:

And here's how it turns out in real life:

Now this spaghetti-like piece of bitumen is the brain-child of the one and only Romanian Communist Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. He wanted to be able to see the top of the mountains, but didn't want to have to climb them. So in a typical beaux-art 'Man overpowering Nature' type megalomaniacal effort he ordered the building of this road... One of many crazy things he did before the 1989 revolution. So no buses go down this route, and because it gets cold in winter, the road is actually only open between July and August, perfect timing for us! Lucky ducks. So the road was pretty much empty when we ventured and Dan had a bang-on time trying to navigate the corners in our little Skoda, whilst we all just made brrrmmm brrrmmm noises in the back and looked out the window with expressions of 'Oh my God'/'woahhhhhh'/'holy cow' passing our lips infrequently. So, because the Skoda did so well, I thought I should put up a glory picture of it.

Nice one Skoda.

Couch-Surfing with Akos, Anna and Agnes!

Another experience of note was our most enjoyable stay with our new adoptive Romanian Family, inclusive of Akos, Anna and Agnes. The warmly welcomed us into their house in Cluj-Napoca (North-West Romania) for three nights. It was so nice to jump right into a family and do everything together: drinking beers in town, going to a salt mine, eating watermelon, gorge walking and our big day of hiking (25 kms). Here's us all at the top!

And of course, indulging in the 11kg watermelon Akos presented us with! Romanian specialty.

Mostly I think we were all just astonished at the generosity of strangers. For so many reason, couchsurfing shouldn't exist, but it does, and it's so dependent on blind trust. A fantastic opportunity that seriously made our time in Romania!

That Crazy guy in Ljubljana...

So here's how we arrive in Ljubliana. I travelled from Budapest on a night train which was supposed to arrive in at 2am, unfortunately I missed my stop, leaving me waiting alone for an hour in a random station in Slovenia for a train back to Ljubliana, where I eventually arrived-sans sleep- at 6am. Dan and Pip arrive at around the same time after some awesome awesome awesome guy on their bus into Slovenia decides to hop on without a passport... story said, everyone is totally tired, drained and exhausted. We locker our bags and head in for a look at old Ljubbers (without doubt the most difficult to pronounce city I have been to thus far). Meandering around the market and trying to buy figs we hear this 'YOU WANT TO BUY FIGS!???!' yelled in English. We turn around for our first glimpse of Maryn Simcic, a grey-bearded fellow, with studious glasses and a love of yelling things to unsuspecting English-speakers (pictured below). Making polite conversation we ask what his suggestions are for stuff to see in town... his answer is 'I'll show you'... and for the next two and a half hours we were his. We had no idea what we were in for as we were led around town by this Food Science Professor.

  

Here is just a brief list of places we went/stuff that happened that we were not expecting:

-we collected unpasteurised milk from a machine

-we stood inbetween three birch trees in the centre of town and felt the 'energy' of the town, which centred on this spot, where both lines of feminine and masculine met according to Vladic's plan of Ljubjana...

-we 'felt the machine of the building' by being allowed into the National Library (Vladic's design) reading room (for students only) and the archives

-we met the head of the communist party of Slovenia

-we just hopped on into the schmickest hotel in Slovenia and sat in their courtyard and were served juice

-we went through all the back passages of the Ljubliana University and saw the balcony where Bill Clinton was declined speaking rights from.

-we were given postcards and a book by the famous Slovenian poet Perseveran.

Yes, a ridiculous array of happenings, and all whilst Maryn continually grabbed my camera and took photos from ridiculous angles in front of this or that monument or with random people... Exhibit A and B:

Where did he get the artistic license for these angles?

No, we do not know that woman on the end... but yes, she does have a bottle of milk that we just gathered from the machine behind.

Needless to say, that was the most spontaneous, crazy and ridiculous tour I have ever been on. Afterwards, when Maryn had left, we all sat there stunned, unable to take in the extreme babble of information, words, paparazzi-type picture taking and absurdity of it all... Who was that guy?

ART-WANK

Like Morocco, I think our interests in the East lay elsewhere, therefore, nothing to add here... sorry.

 

Romance in Italy

Flung from Africa to the boot-shaped country and into the waiting arms of Miss Phillipa Brumby, we started our Italian Romance. A two-week love affair. Here we kindled a bond beyond any other, bound by our mutual love of art, coffee, Italian food and Italian police officers (see below).

Florence

Our first day in Florence was well spent, I must say. We went truely Italian, spending the morning at l'Accademia, getting close with Michelangelo's David, drinking espresso, picking out engagement rings on the Ponte Vecchio (see below) for when Pip finally decides to pop the question, strolling up to the Piazza Michelangelo (yep, everything sounds significant and arty in this part of town), napping in a park and thoroughly enjoying a beer and pizza combo to finish off the day... Well they say that Italy is about indulgence right? Personally, Paris has been pipped for me as the city of Love...

But other then that we spent a few glorious days eating gelati, ending up at a random Latin American music festival held in a fortress, looking at markets, eating gelati, visiting Siena-Florence's biggest rival, and spending a mere 4 hours in the Uffizi- one of Italy's finest museums, although shoddily organised.

Next our lover's holiday took us to

Cinque terre National Park

Which is nothing like anything you could imagine from an Australian National Park, but in fact an area on the North-West coast of Italy, which covers five towns set amongst stunning coastline, hills and cliffs. Or for a more visual description:

There's a walk that goes between all five towns and takes approximately 5 hours. On the day we did it, we stopped half way, bought grapes and went to the rocky cliffs and swam around with all the beautiful Italians. Man, I love Italy! The final streach of the walk is a rather easy meander called Lover's Lane or Via Dell'Amore... Need I say more... Italy you've done it again.

Our last destination on our very short stint in Italia was the infamous

Rome

A city where you wander around and everything just looks a little bit familiar, because almost everything is of some kind of cultural significance, importance, Julius Caesar did this here or that there... blah blah...

But I was surprised to see such a pairing of tacky tourism, crappy food, too much history and fantastic art... an instanct that led us to believe that the only viable (cheap) food option was getting Chinese... a tourist sin, but one we indulged in anyway.

So our days were spent sniffing out monuments. Easy to see them coming because there's suddenly a huge increase in tacky tourist shops, annoying hawkers, terrible food joints and McDonalds... and BAM, there's teh Trevi Fountain/Colesseum/Vatican/etc. I also had a brief couchsurfing stint with the one and only Mexican designer living in Rome, Pepe. Greatly enjoyed wandering around the city and seeing what you find, free Opera on the Spanish Steps, vintage stores behind the Pantheon, taste testings on the street... there is always something going on.

And now I've already headed East-Europe-wards, so will be back with an update about travels around that way soon!

Wishing you all the best from over here.

IN-DEPTH

The Vatican

I can't help but bang on about the Vatican Museum... Sorry, but woah, this place has more art... then, well, anywhere. So I was left awed and absolutely arted out after a six-hour art nerd bonanza in this set of museums... yes, I am a loser. Absolutely loved it. But what I also found interesting was how such a collection was created. This guy:

 

Pope Julius II just decided that Rome had lost it's touch, that it wasn't as important or culturally significant as it used to be. So what does he do? Get his buddies, only the most famous artistis of the time (Raphael, Michelangelo etc) to come down and make some works specifically for the Vatican Museums. Now if that isn't a fantastic display of the power of the Church, well then... I'll eat my typical Arts-student moleskin that I've been tauting around everywhere.

ART-WANK

This could well be the longest art-wank of the entire trip... so here goes.

Florence

Made me fall in love with the Renaissance again.

• L'Accademia- Michelangelo's David is HUGE. Pretty awesome in the true sense of the word.
• Uffizi- I joined in with the throngs of Japanese tourists for a four hour, self-guided tour of this building. Seriously ridiculous how many famous works are housed in this shambled museum. Adorned by computer print-out didatics and little information for the non-art-versed visitor, you can catch a glimpse of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, douse it down with some Carravaggio (including his Bacchus) and fit in Gentileschi's Judith and Holofernes. The weird thing about this museum is that it was recently bombed in a mafia related incident, so heaps of the museum is being renovated, and some works were destroyed, leaving a really higgildy-piggildy (for want of a better word) museum with no clear guidance or sequence of the major works in sync with surrounding ones.

Rome

I'm pretty sure Rome is some set competition for Adelaide's title as the 'City of Churches'. Apparently if you visited Roman Churches at the rate of 3 per day, it would take you 3 years to see all of them! Anywho, if you know where to look, it means you can find lots of amazing works for free! Or they have this weird thing where you have to pay a nominal fee to turn the lights on and actually be able to see the painting!

• Santa Maria della Vittoria. A small chapel in the back streets of Rome, about 5 minutes from our hostel. And what do we find there? Only one of Bernini's most controversial sculptures- The Ecstacy of Saint Theresa. A work made famous because, well... her 'spiritual enlightenment' looks like she's having an orgasm. Reportedly one of the first viewers commented: 'If that's enlightenment, then I want some', or something to that affect. The first few minutes of this BBC episode portray it pretty well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsC5W-brbAo
• Santa Luigi Di Francesci-Caravaggio's St Matthew series
• Borghese Gallery-gorgeous. Show stopper's have to include all the works by Caravaggio and Bernini.
• THE VATICAN. Favourites include Raphael's Stanza, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and also the Picotera (painting collection), fabulously housed after the Sistine Chapel, so delightfully empty and housing great works such as Raphael's Annunciation.