I’ve put off writing this piece for quite a while now. It’s been over a year (15 months, in fact) since we were in Yerevan, and part of me hoped the distance from the place would make my heart grow fonder of it. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been quite the case. And while I don’t actively dislike Yerevan – we actually had quite a good time there, all things considered – I have become sort of ambivalent about visiting again. 
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Belgrade, Serbia is one of those places I was destined to fall in love with. Everything I knew about it spoke to me on an almost primal level. It’s home to pristine examples of social realist and brutalist architecture. Serbian food is amazing – including several types of cheesy carbs. As the capital of the former Socialist Republic of Jugoslavija, it would be full of markets shilling communist shwag. I’m in love with gypsy horn music (Brasslands is an amazing documentary everyone should watch). And all of my favorite bloggers had written about the amazingness of the city – see Yomadic, Silvia at Heart my Backpack, The Bohemian Blog, and Waegook Tom have all sung its praises over the course of the past few years. 
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So I know that the time for year in review posts has come and long gone, but, like your hoarder neighbors who leave the Christmas wreath up until Spring, I too have put off this seminal blogging event. Blah blah, working 50-60 hours a week, I won’t give you excuses so you don’t have to read them. Instead, let me jump right into a recap of what became my most eventful year in travel ever.
I think it’s common knowledge that the quickest and easiest way to get to know a place is with someone who lives there and knows its ins and outs. It cuts down on the learning curve, which can be especially difficult in places off the beaten path – like some parts of Serbia that aren’t as frequented by tourists, especially in the winter months. So when I was doing my manic googling (as I do before any trip), I was very excited to come across the Subotica Greeters Program – a program that enables tourists in the Vojvodina city to explore with someone who knows the city well and has access to all of the gems it has to offer.
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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
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?
My boss at my last job spent two years in the Peace Corps in Estonia in the 1990s, and when I told her my now husband and I were planning a trip to the Baltic States for our honeymoon, she couldn’t stop singing praises for Pärnu. I thought, better listen to the expert, and include it in our Baltic itinerary, even if for a short stopover on our way into Latvia. 
And thus, Pärnu was a brief stop on our whirlwind Baltic Road Trip Honeymoon™ this past summer. We stopped there for an extended lunch and wander period in between Saaremaa and the Gauja National Park. We were a bit down in the dumps about not having enough time in Saaremaa to properly explore, and had planned to only stop for a quick lunch. But, as it happens when one visits a place truly unburdened by unrealistic expectations, we ended up loving Pärnu!
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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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When travelers think of the Baltic States (if at all!), it’s usually of Tallinn and Riga, the relatively well-touristed capitals of Estonia and Latvia. We loved Tallinn and Riga, but in our time in the Baltic States, we also wanted to get off the beaten path a little bit and discover parts of the region that weren’t as frequented by our ilk. 
The issue was that we were on a fairly compressed time frame in the Baltics – we had to be in Vilnius, Lithuania by a certain day in order to catch our flight to Malta (ugh), so most of the rural, provincial parts of the Baltics we could see would be in passing. Luckily enough, many of the small towns scattered throughout the Baltic States, and especially Latvia as we would find out, are small enough to be walked in a couple of hours, after which you can be on your merry way to your next capital or abandoned Soviet military installation. Did I mention I loved the Baltics? Read more
