Transylvania

I re-read Bram Stoker's Dracula in July and was completely enchanted by his description of the Transylvanian countryside. I decided to put it at the top of my travel wish-list and as I had a week before starting my new job at Quintessentially, thought it to be the perfect opportunity for a little adventure. Since Romania seemed to run alongside my eastern european travel theme this year, I picked-up the phone to call Claudia.  

I met Claudia when we were assigned to the same temporary job for a week last December. Originally from Sibiu and a world traveller herself, Claudia spent a number of years working on a cruise line (where she met her South African husband Jarred).  We hit it off immediately and she soon became one of my best friends in London.  

Claudia asked me 3 questions when I told her of my travel plans to Romania:

'Do you know where you're staying?' she asked.

'Not yet' I replied.

'Do you know how to get around?' she asked again.

Bus? Walk? Hitchhike? 'Not yet.'

'Do you know how to speak Romanian?'

'Not yet' I joked, as I actually had no intention of learning the language.  

'Ok, you'll wait until September when I'm going  home for a wedding and you can come with me then' she said. Amazing. 

I arrived at Sibiu National Airport on Saturday September 19th.  I honestly do not remember the last time someone has greeted me at the airport, but it is hands-down one of the best feelings in the world. Landing in a foreign country always produces a rush of nervous excitement which is absolutely thrilling, but travelling is still exhausting and stressful and sometimes there is nothing more comforting than seeing a familiar face on the other-side.  

Claudia was kind enough to invite me to stay with her.  Her parents still live in the apartment Claudia grew up in just outside of the city, and although they had a full house with Claudia and Jarred visiting, one of their neighbours had a spare room in the apartment just below theirs that I was permitted to set up camp in for the week.  Neither of Claudia's parents spoke English, but I felt like we understood each other just fine.  She welcomed me into the kitchen where she had prepared a feast of homemade dips, cheeses, meat assortments, fresh bread, and motioned me to eat.

'Thank you, but i just ate on the plane' I said.

Her scowl said that she wasn't taking no for an answer, so I humoured her by taking a few bites.  She still looked upset when I didn't finish everything on the table.  Claudia's dad asked me something in Romanian as he went into their pantry which Claudia translated: 'Would you like something sweet?'

'No really, Claudia how do you say full?  Plein, plein, I'm plein, no more please' I replied.

He reappeared out of the pantry with a bottle of something red regardless.  'Palinka,' Claudia explained. 'Our traditional household Vodka most families make.'  He poured a shot and instructed me to drink it.  Typically, Palinka has at least 40% ABV.  This one must have had 80% and I struggled not to react as it burned down my throat.

With my buzz on I went down to drop off my luggage and meet my host Maria, who also had a shot of Palinka on the table waiting for me. You guys really know how to party here, I'm going to be drunk before 3 p.m. at  this rate.  Maria was a lovely lady, but didn't speak English either, so we used google translate and played charades to communicate.

I See You

That evening I strolled down to the Old Town in Sibiu which looked exactly how I imagined it to after years of hearing fictional tales and folklore based in the area (typically vampire dominant). I try not to create expectations of a place before I've never seen it personally, but ironically enough the Old Town in Sibiu fit my preconceived image to a tee. I was completely mesmerised shortly after I began wandering the side streets near the town square. The architecture of the houses and buildings differed ever so slightly in style from one to the next which contributed to the overall character of the city.  It was evident that a great deal of care and consideration went into their construction, and although many of the houses had not been maintained as the paint was chipped and faded and the shingles on the rooftops were rotting away, the original charm still shown through, and the unkempt appearance covering it ever so slightly created a dominant aura of gothic romance.

Sibiu Old Town

During our road-trips around Transylvania in the following days, I caught myself staring out the window and daydreaming about what it would have been like to live back in the medieval era, riding on horseback for days on end while journeying from castle to castle.  I asked Claudia if there was somewhere nearby that offered horseback riding, and it turns out there was. The next morning Claudia and I ventured out to the Pensiunea Brandusa ranch on the forest's edge.

I'm typically not a fan of horseback riding in countries that require you to sign any type of safety waiver for I've found they are the ones that strictly enforce a maximum walking pace slightly slower than that which I believe a hungover turtle would cruise along at.  Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Romania (which I was soon to discover), let you jump on a saddle without instruction and leave you at the mercy of the temperament of the horse which you are attached to for the next two hours.  Luckily I got paired with one as keen to explore as me.  Claudia's on the other hand, was more interested in stopping every meter for a 'side of the trail bush' snack and then to poop it out shortly afterwards.  Sorry Claudia. She was a good sport about it though.

Aside from the pooping, there is something so romantic about travelling by horseback. It's a natural means of transportation where you are connected to another being that you are able to form a real life connection with instead of an inanimate object such as a car or bus.  They let you appreciate your surroundings untainted by the noise of a motor, and the surge of built up energy released when they run wild is unparalleled.  Mick Jagger even harnessed his appreciation into the top hit 'Wild Horses'.

The next morning we planned a day trip to Sighisoara but as we sat around the breakfast table I asked Claudia about her life growing up in Sibiu.  I didn't realise that it wasn't until 1989 that communism lifted in Romania, only one year before I was born.  Furthermore, I didn't grasp the extent that this affected Claudia until she recounted her childhood of food stamps and waiting in line at 5 a.m. to ensure her family received their daily rations.  As horrible as I imagined that life to be, I was even more astounded at her parents opinion of their forced lifestyle.  To my shock, they actually preferred their country under communist rule, and they weren't alone in thinking this. The entire population was accustomed to the same daily routine of waking up to attend school or work in the factor, that they experienced a self-identity crisis when it was halted.  Overnight the country overturned leaving half of the population unemployed.  Crime and theft spiraled out of control and depression was at an all time high as people fell short of reasons to leave their homes.  Freedom always comes with a price, and the stakes were high in this case. Luckily Romania's land is as fertile as they come, and turning to agriculture was an easy alternative to fuel their economy after the factories shut down.

On the hour drive to Sighisoara, Claudia pointed at the houses lined in a row next to the road and explained that most of them had small self-contained farms on their property out back.  One of these houses belonged to her cousin and on the way home we stopped in for a visit and tour of their yard which sure enough held two pigs, a chicken coop, and endless amounts of fruit and vegetables (I must say the grapes were divine).  When I asked her aunt where they sold their crops she laughed and replied it was all for their own personal use. Can I move in?

Sighisoara gained fame in the tourism sector after Bram Stoker's novel was published as it was indeed where Vlad Druacula was born (although he most notably reigned in a castle which is inconveniently located in the middle of nowhere and you have to dedicate a few days to travel if you wish to see it).

My favorite part of the Sighisoara was the cemetery situated next to the Bergkirche church, an iconic monument of noteworthy gothic architecture situated on the top of a hill overlooking the town.  There wasn't another person in sight that afternoon and the sunlight shimmered through the trees and we weaved through tombstones in silence, alone with our thoughts.  Death is dark and tragic, but it's mystery entices a beauty comparable to that of life.  Standing in the cemetery I was enfolded into a state of absolute serenity as I took in my surroundings and reflected on everything I had come to know about this country.  Transylvania had most certainly surpassed my expectations and I can say without doubt that I will return to it again one day.

Bergkirche Church and Cemetery

Into The Fog

Auschwitz

With two weeks before the commencement of my new job, I was presented with yet another opportunity to jump aboard the 'Explore Europe' Train.

A dear friend of mine from University, Jessica Schul, had the time off as well, so she flew over to stay with me in London for a few days before packing our bags and jet-setting to Krakow.

I travelled to Warsaw and Gdansk the summer of 2012 with Catherine, but was in quite the opposite state of mind from the relaxed beach vacation mode of the previous trip. This time I was here to see Auschwitz.

Auschwitz Limits

My grandparents on my mother's side were Polish, and although my Jaja (polish for Grandfather) passed away before my birth, my Baba played an influential part in my upbringing.  As both of my parents worked full-time in my youth, she turned into a second mother to me and I loved her as much as my own.

She was not your typical grandmother figure- full of kisses, and cheek pinches.  No, she had a tough love about her, and certain quirks I didn't come to fully understand until I heard the horror story that had encompassed the vast majority of her life.  Born in 1924, she grew up in the rural area of Horyniec, a city in Northwest Poland.  At 16 years of age, she was taken from her family in the middle of the night by Nazi soldiers after they invaded.  She was given a choice to continue to work in the countryside by helping a German family, or travel to the city to be a source of cheap labour there.  She chose the country side, which may have saved her life as many of the Polish city workers eventually were deported to concentration camps.  She never saw her parents again after that night.

I tried many times to extract her entire story, but it was a difficult subject for her to open; after a few minutes of mental retreat to this part of her life it would prove too difficult of a task. Her eyes would glaze over, and her expression would harden, and then the tears welled and fell.  I never pressed her past this point, and therefore only conjured up fragments what she experienced.

The wife of a Nazi soldier she worked for during the early days of her capture was a registered nurse, and as cunning of a lady my Baba was, she quickly and slyly learnt all she could about this practice.  On a separate round of labour recruitment, she lied and said she was a nurse,  which led to her placement of working in a nearby hospital under much better living conditions and most probably saved her from being sentenced to a concentration camp.

I'll never forget walking back from one of our morning trips to the grocery store in my childhood. We were walking along the sidewalk and she looked at me and said in her thick Polish accent, "You have no idea how lucky you are to live in Canada.  When I was a kid, I would walk down the street and there would be explosions everywhere!  You see that bush over there? One day I was walking and turned to see a mangled arm in the bush right next to me, just like that one!  Body parts were everywhere in the streets back then."

We both walked the rest of the way home in silence, Baba lost in her horrible memories, and myself in dumfounded confusion derived from sheltered childhood innocence.

Baba remained the mentally and physically strong woman she was until the end of her life on November 14, 2008.

I've always carried an intrinsic curiosity around the second world war, and spent many sleepless nights through my teenage years reading the entire collection of Carol Matas novels under the covers.  I'd learned a great deal about the holocaust through literature, but couldn't fully wrap my head around the reality it's nightmare. Not that I doubted it's occurrence as too many do- it was more like someone was trying to convince me the Boogeyman existed from their first hand accounts with him.  You know their story is true, you believe them, but it's difficult to fathom until you see it for yourself.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz is an hour's drive east of Krakow.  Jess and I bought tickets for the morning shuttle, and rode in silence for the majority of the trip- staring out into the desolate landscape, covered in a thin layer of grey snow, with the occasional patch of tall lifeless grass protruding through.

We pulled up to the entrance of the museum, purchased our tickets for the next English tour and congregated outside near the camp entrance gates.  A pretty middle-aged woman with long dark hair matching the colour of her expressionless eyes greeted us after a few minutes and introduced herself as our guide.

I don't think I will ever have the same amount of respect for anyone after realising what the job description of an Auschwitz guide entails.  It's difficult enough to experience the camp for a few hours, but these courageous people have dedicated the majority of their lives to study this horrendous event, and carried on to re-live it everyday of their working career.  That is philanthropy carried to a whole new level.  I would have thought that after a time you would become desensitised to the environment as a defence mechanism to safeguard your emotional well-being, but that wasn't apparent in our guide- as she appeared a broken spirit.

I was in a state of shock the entire tour.  Even with the sun shinning brightly on the cloudless day, a dark somber aura encompassed the entire camp, like a dense fog that would not dissipate.  It followed me through the barracks where they had once crammed 25 people into the space that wouldn't comfortable fit 4.   It followed me through the gas chambers, where hundreds of thousands of victims were promised a warm shower as reward for their hard labour before being brutally executed by choking to death on toxic air.  It followed me through the crematorium, where they began burning bodies after realising the mounds of cadavers were becoming too large and inconvenient to bury.

Railroad into the Camp

I had remained composed during most of the tour, but when we entered the barracks that had been converted into an exhibition on the possessions confiscated from the victims,  it pushed me over the edge.  In the first showcase were thousands of shoes piled into a mound.  The shoes they had stepped off the train with on their first day of arrival into Auschwitz- the beginning of the end.   Each pair of shoes was once worn by an innocent victim, and more than a million victims met their unjust end in this camp.

Another showcase was dedicated to the precious metals derived from the dental work of the victims. That's right- their teeth.  After committing murder, Nazi's would inspect their victims mouth for fillings as sometimes these were done using gold or silver.  If any were discovered, they would be ripped from their mouth, melted down, and traded.

I was overcome with a wave of nausea, and as I turned to get some fresh air I came face to face with showcase number 3:  Human Hair.  The actual hair shaved from the victims head, again, on their day of arrival.  A pile so large the showcase covered the entire wall of the barrack.  This was the room that would haunt me.  This was the room that everything unfathomable about Auschwitz was given a direct meaning.  The number of casualties that I couldn't wrap my head around, was put into context right before my eyes, and the realisation of it was too much for me to handle.

Visiting Auschwitz was the most emotionally trying day of my life, and as so many have said before me- it's not something I will ever do again, but it is something that has to be done once.

Many thanks to Jessica Schul for sharing this experience with me.  It means a lot to have a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on during your visit.

Only E-stone-ia Throw Away (Flat Trip Part 2)

At 50 miles south of Helsinki, we reached our destination at the capital of Estonia; Tallinn.  If you had absolutely no clue that the capital of Estonia was Tallinn, please do not feel embarrassed, just visit it.

Talinn from a view

Tallinn is becoming known as the up-and-coming Amsterdam: the future party capital of  Europe.  We checked into The Monk's Bunk hostel, and on the way to reception, were passed by one of the four stag parties residing in the accommodations that evening, filling the hallway with the overbearing stench of cheap beer, and perhaps even a hint of Jaggermeister .  The future groom was dressed in a full body chicken costume, and was making extremely obnoxious noises that I presume to be the sounds he thought chickens make.

The walls in our room were painted like outer space and there was even crafty little alien on the wall beside my bunk which was the handsomest thing I've woken up too in a while.  We were recommended to check out The Three Dragons for dinner, a medieval style pub/restaurant.  I was a little hesitant as these typically come off very cliche, but then again, the old town was remarkably well preserved over the centuries and it often times felt like you had stepped back in time while strolling down the cobble stone streets.  The Three Dragons was hilarious.  It was well hidden in the side of the Town Hall building, and all of the employees were not only dressed in peasant clothes, but acted in character as well.

Nick and Max anticipating their meal

"Look at you fools just standing in the doorway, you're letting the cold in! Come in or get out, quick, QUICK!!  Idiots", was how we were greeted upon arrival.


The room (for that's all it was) was furnished with uncomfortable stone benches and wooden tables. The only source of light was from the candles that were way to few and far between.  Nick looked at the group and told us not to drop anything, for it would be lost forever to the black abyss of the ground.  It took us a good ten minutes before we realized that no one would be coming to take our order, so we cautiously approached the counter and chose between the three items on the menu that evening: Elk soup, Elk sausages and small hot savory pies with different meat and vegetable fillings.  As the portions were small, everyone tried all three options.  Be it coming in from the cold, the actual quality of the food, the preparation, or all three; it was the most incredible meal I had tasted ever since I could remember.  They also served hot cider, and mulled wine in clay mugs to really put the meal over the top.  The best way I could describe it was (perhaps influenced by being surrounded by my kiwi mates but) I felt like I was in one of the pub scenes from Lord of the Rings...minus the hobbits of course.  I highly recommend that experience to anyone visiting Tallinn.

The city walking tour the next morning was equally impressive.  I've always found these to be a great way to get to know the history of city and other interesting tidbits would otherwise go unnoticed by the oblivious eye, and if you're a lone traveller they're a great means to meet like-minded individuals.  Since I was the only one interested in the two hour outdoor tour that chilly morning, I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Nola (originally from New York but also living in London at the moment) who was bright, sharp, and always had her wits about her.  We instantly hit it off, and I even took her to get another fix of The Three Dragons for lunch after the tour.

Our agenda that evening was filled with a tour of the Patarei Prison, a soviet-era detention facility shut down in 2005, and reopen to the public a few years later.  Tours normally don't operate in the winter, but as luck chanced upon us one of the local guides was a little strapped for cash and agreed to a private tour that evening.  He wasn't much of a talker, and actually was so absorbed in his cell phone on the walk down to the coast, he walked right into a stop sign.  I was tailing right behind him, and it made such a loud 'clang' when he smashed into it that my heart skipped a beat. I screamed and jumped back before registering what had happened, then quickly asked him if he was alight.

'Fine, fine', he muttered and continued his brisk walk.  Nola was right next to me and gave me an apprehensive glance as we started off again.  Dusk approached as we neared the entrance, further enhancing our uneasy feeling.  When we reached the prison gates, there was no city left in sight, no people wandering the streets, no animals out on an evening hunt; just silence.

Our guide stumbled with the keys that unlocked the large padlock on the thick wrought iron fence gate.  He quickly ushered us in, and securely bolted the exit behind us.

When travelling, it's easy to find yourself in a constant state of shock.  Being put in new and unfamiliar environments creates a rush of adrenaline that doesn't always keep you grounded enough to think clearly, or provide you with adequate time to stop, relax, and fully grasp your surroundings.

The bang of the gate slamming behind us, trapping us in the courtyard, jolted me back to my senses for a minute.  The realization that I was in a small group of young adults, on a tour that doesn't normally operate this time of year, accompanied by a guide acting very strange, on the outskirts of a city in Eastern Europe and locked into a prison that looked to be an exact replica of the movie "Hostel"'s shooting location, the thought that maybe this wasn't a smart idea slowly dawned on me.

There was no turning back now, so we continued our way to the inside of the prison.  My fears washed away as we began the tour.  Our guide, though slightly off, was extremely informative, and actually turned out to be somewhat of a prankster.  He took pleasure in scaring the living daylights out of us, and would randomly lead us into the pitch black of a cell, lock the door behind us, and after a few minutes us being locked in the cell with dead silence, he would pound loudly on the door making us all jump 10 feet in the air. It seemed more like a ghost tour than anything, and as soon as I realized it was in fact a legitimate tour and no one was out to murder me, I relaxed into it.

Nick and Xavier in an old cell

Art added after the prison closure in 2005

At the end of the tour, our guide even accompanied us back to town to show us his favorite local pub where we all ate dinner together before retiring for the evening.  Turns out, he was not just well informed on Patarei Prison, but could easily teach a history course on Estonia.

If you carry the passion to travel, you're usually drawn to one particular interest more than others.  For some it's the love of discovering new cuisine, for others, it's the sights to behold or experiences to be had.  For me, it's always been about the people.  I've been fortunate enough in my travels to meet people from all walks of life, and I haven't learned half as much from any text book as I have through conversations with fascinating individuals sharing their life experiences with me.  I can't wait to discover who my travels will lead me to next...

St. Mary's Church in Tallinn