Hello, hello, hello! Things have been quiet as of late for a couple of reasons (maybe probably most likely because I’ve been working 55 hour weeks, but no matter!), the most prominent being that I’ve been keeping a secret. Not very well, because I’ve told quite a few of my upcoming, secret travel plans. But hold your breath no more – because I’m here to announce…
We’re going back to the Balkans! Again!
On Saturday! Read more
I don’t talk about it much here, but in the list of hobbies that form the foundation of my adult identity, fitness ranks pretty highly. In fact, after puppies and travel, I’d say fitness, and running in particular, is a close third.
David and I run several distance events every year, ranging from half marathon to ultramarathon distance, so staying fit when we travel is important to us. That isn’t to say that we actually do train when we travel, but rather we usually think aloud about how we aren’t doing it, then proceed to stuff additional cheesey carbs into our face holes. After all, the base of the traveler’s food pyramid is cheesey breads, am I right?
The title to this post makes me grin from ear to ear. It is a microcosm of everything travel-related that I’m living for these days – road trips, Balkan destinations, and the stuff for which this site is named. I think if a single post were to encapsulate the way I love to travel, it would be this one. So with that, let’s dive headfirst into the wacky world of Bulgarian monuments.
The major draw to Bulgaria (and the whole Balkan region, to be honest) was the ability to visit Buzludzha (more to come on Buzludzha!), the showcase, now-abandoned, former meeting hall of the Bulgarian Communist Party. As it is inaccessible without private transportation, we rented a car for the Bulgaria portion of our trip. A rather unexpected side benefit to this was being able to pull over whenever and wherever (within reason, of course) that we wanted.
As it turns out, there are roadside relics of the Communist era all over Bulgaria. Quelle fortune!
It seemed as though everywhere we went there was a random, totally wacky structure, monument, or sculpture – and our job was to spot them as we went on the most fun game of “Where’s Waldo” ever played. 
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Let me preface this by saying that we loved Kosovo. It was about as disorienting and wacky of a place that I’ve ever visited – I’d put it up toward the top of the list with Mongolia on the disorientation scale. But we had a perennial problem in the country. Everything was closed!
And closed for no good reason, I believe. Granted, we were there in the off season, so maybe we should have expected it? There is no well beaten tourist path through the country yet (we didn’t see a single other tourist in the whole of the country, literally), and people tend to be on Balkan time, so I’m not sure why I expected things to run on schedule like a Japanese train.
Our first encounter with unavailable services came when we attempted to visit Pristina’s Tourist Information Center. I am a big fan of tourist information centers and kiosks, and drag David to them in every country we visit. The little blue-circled lower case “i” on city maps brings me joy, just knowing that increased knowledge can be found just a short walk away! Read more
Of all of the things that define me as a person, not even just a traveler, but a person in general, animal lover is right near the top. In fact, in my day to day life, animal lover would probably outrank travel luster on most days. I am a dog dad to two loveable jerk-ass senior rescue Dachshunds, and a step dog dad to the world’s sweetest Golden Retriever. For our wedding, instead of having a registry, David and I directed people to donate money to Old Dog Haven, our favorite local nonprofit dedicated to rehoming senior shelter dogs, instead of bringing us gifts. So, without too much hand wringing, it’s safe to say that we’re certifiable animal whack-jobs.
So, how is this relevant to our time in Bulgaria, you may ask? I’m getting there – on the day we left Sofia on leg one of our self-drive road trip we had originally planned to drive south to visit Rila Monastery, then through Plovdiv to Kalofer, where we would spend the night before hitting up Buzludzha the next morning. This was a great plan, and we were both content with it. But, knowing my past with and David’s PTSD surrounding monastery visits, we were less than enthused about visiting Rila Monastery, despite its status as Bulgaria’s number one tourist attraction.
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I am a shopper. When David and I go on vacation, one of our best practices is to arrive in our destination with only carry on luggage, and then check luggage (full of trinkets, naturally) on the way home. I have some hoarder-type tendencies (it ranges from tchotchke to canines) that are very real, and perhaps they most strongly manifest in my accumulation of things when I travel.
As I’ve said before, the spontaneity of our Balkan adventure this October made me get out of my comfort zone while planning. So, when I knew we’d have two nights in Kosovo – one in Pristina, and the next in Prizren – before heading to Macedonia, I wanted to make the day in between really count. I had lofty goals of seeing the Patriarchy of Pec on that day, which would require either bussing between all three cities, or hiring a car.
My typical MO when planning trips to places with less developed tourist infrastructures is almost always to hop on Tripadvisor forums first to see what is possible. This was especially useful this trip as my other main source of information, other travel blogs, are a bit scanty on information about Kosovo outside of Pristina and Prizren. So off to the forums it was, and even then, information wasn’t readily available. No problem, I just started my own thread, and waited for replies to arrive. Read more
One of the great parts of our most recent trip to the Balkans was that it pushed me out of my comfort zone. Normally when I travel I obsessively and compulsively project manage the living hell out of the whole thing. To the point where almost every minute of every day is accounted for in some way or another. I’d attribute this proclivity to my business training, but that’d be lying – I’ve been like this forever. But anyway, being that there was only a week between booking tickets and departing on this adventure, I didn’t have the time to plan everything. And thus, I didn’t realize when we left that we were destined to fall in love with Skopje, Macedonia.
I mean, what’s not to love about all of this quirky, Yugoslav-era, “communist” architecture?
Where to start? My life has been a crazy whirlwind the past two weeks and I want to tell you all about it. Where to start…
David and I got back from our honeymoon on September 12. On September 11, a random on Linkedin added me to his network, and I confirmed about midway through the week on September 16. Turns out, it was a recruiter, and I ran through about six rounds of interviews with a major company in Seattle, let’s call them…Ahab’s Tea…and last week (September 30) received a ridiculously generous offer from them.
October 1, I put in notice with my current job, with my last day being Friday, October 9. Also October 1, I confirmed with Ahab’s Tea that I would start on October 22.
So…I know what you’re thinking – there’s a 12 day gap between those two dates. We’re taking a trip – looked around for cheap(ish) airfares, and landed on a trip overland, starting in Pristina, Kosovo, through Macedonia, and into Bulgaria.
Here’s what I’m most excited about, and what I’m reading to get me excited:
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I am a relative noob to the world of Urbex, but where I lack in experience, I make up for in time spent in internet K-holes. I’ve already built quite a list of places I’m keen on tresspassing – here are the five that are currently top of mind. Or, rather, the five that are currently living in my pipe dreams – I don’t have immediate plans to visit any of the places on this list, though I’m thinking that may have to change in the near future (especially looking at the Eastern Balkans…)
1) Gunkanjima/Hashima, Nagasaki, Japan
