SchockBlogArchive

Wow, what a change from Kosovo. Dubrovnik is tourism central, English is spoken everywhere and there are no destroyed buildings to speak of. (Though Dubrovnik was shelled to bits by Serbian forces in 1991 for no strategic reason. It's since been restored.)

I'm too tired to really post anything interesting because I spent 15 hours on a night bus from Prishtina to here. Terrible roads and Albanian pop music make Jason a dull boy.

I did manage to shoot some photos today. Enjoy.

Kotor, Montenegro




Dubrovnik, Croatia

I arrived in Prishtina, Kosovo last night. What's a Kosovo, you ask? It's a region in the Balkans, formerly part of Serbia. As of 1999, Kosovo is a protectorate of the UN and NATO after they intervened to stop Serbian agression - genocide and mass expulsion - against Albanian Kosovars.

If you're wondering about the significance of this place, Wikipedia has an extensive article on the conflict in this region.

Kosovo is on its way to independence, which will likely be confirmed in a 2006 referendum. Google is a good source for current news about Kosovo.

People have been asking why I'm here, and that's a good question, too. I guess it's to see what's here. And to take photos, of course.

... Continued...

[I'm jumping ahead to write about Serbia due to limited Internet time and apathy. More on Slovenia and Croatia soon.]

From Zagreb, I caught a night train to Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro (Yugoslav Republic, whatever you want to call it). When I got on the train, I was able to supersize to a sleeper car for only €10. It sounds like a deal, I know, but it's really impossible to sleep on an eastern European train that makes 12 stops in 6.5 hours.

The redeeming part of the trip was the vibrant pink sunrise over the outskirts of Belgrade. Mist-shrouded villages and browning corn fields set a striking, almost cliche, autumn morning scene.

On the train, I met a Slovenian guy named Daniel, a... Continued...

After Vienna, I made my way by train to Ljubljana, the capital city of the tiny-but-wealthy Slovenia (pop. 2 million). The Austrian Alps are incredibly scenic. The rolling mountains are dotted with castles, some of them fairly intact and really spectacular. Just imagining California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, wandering through this countryside as a young body-builder-in-training gave me a feeling of comfort and serenity. Coincidentally, there was another guy from Austria who became a powerful leader in another country. Adolf something ...

Nah, I love Arnold. He's so plastic and lovable. Plus, he's too busy driving his Hummers and groping chicks to engineer the mass genocide of... Continued...

It's a given that when you travel, you will encounter weird food, so today I'll talk about my experience with Bavarian food

The Germans like meat. They eat it for breakfast, luch, dinner, dessert, whatever. In Augsburg, I had the pleasure of eating several new, tasty meat dishes.

• Schweinehaxe
  

  This is basically a big hunk of pork with the skin still on part of it. It's baked in an oven until the skin boils and gets crunchy like a giant pork rind. And that's really all you get.

  Beer and a hunk of flesh.

  It's pretty good - just don't have one of these every day or you'll be getting angioplasties more often than Dick Cheney.

• Weisswurst
  

  Literally "white sausage", this is strictly eaten for

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After Munich, I headed to Augsburg - about an hour away by train - to visit my friend Tim, a German I met the last time I was in Germany two years ago. Augsburg is famous for the Peace of Augsburg and fashion mullets sported by the local university kids. It seems that these kids are trying to out-do eachother for who has the most insanely epileptic barber. I am not kidding, these barbers are probably on acid, too. I'll post pictures later, but just picture a German with some moderately shaggy hair. Now get him drunk and put him in a clothes dryer with a couple of electric razors. A few minutes later, you will get the hair I'm talking about. Add styling gel and some random bleach... Continued...

On October 4th, I started off my 1-month trip through Germany, Austria and the Balkans with a wicked hangover, jet lag and a vicious cold. Straight off the plane to Munich, I met up with my friend, Eric, to hit the last night of Oktoberfest.

We started in the massive Hofbrauhaus tent and downed two liters of sweet, delicious Bavarian beer (at €8 a pop) before meeting up with some other friends at the real Hofbrauhaus in Munich's old city center.

And that's where things got blurry.

From what I remember, though, Oktoberfest was a blast. Americans would probably regard Bavarians as cold, but when you get them in a beer hall, they're anything but. It's kind of a strange dichotomy.

When the... Continued...