Cro-a-tia (that's "Croatia" Split up into its syllables)

Jackets. Hats. Shivering. Cold!

These are the words that the average (and sightly below average) person thinks of when they imagine the beaches of Croatia. The problem is that I'm no average person (I hover around 1/6 average most of the time).

See, I thought it would be a tropical paradise with the most beautiful beaches in the world, but, instead, I was stuck wearing my jacket. 

So cold! Hey, thats my dad. Who invited him into the picture?

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Split, Croatia (yes, its called Split....and its quite easy to fit into puns) in October was a mixed bag (actually, now that I'm writing my thoughts out here, I've had an idea and I'm going to weave the Split pun into random places in this post). October is really just one month too late for consistent warm weather in Croatia (you will recognize these puns because the word 'Split' will be in them). Would it have been too much to ask to go here earlier in the trip? It was really the only place on our itinerary that was so weather dependent because of the.......BEACHES (actually now I'm going back to change the title and include this pun in it. It probably won't make sense until you read this sentence)!

Luckily, there were still a couple nice days in Split (see that wasn't a pun, I was just using the name of the city in a sentence)...

My office for the month

That's more like the weather I expected.

And I suppose there was the occasional beautiful sunset...

What I thought Croatia would be like (and obviously was...since that's a picture I took)

And it ended up being a pretty awesome place to run. On warm days, we would run by the beach and then jump directly into the ocean.

Running one mile calls for a jump in the ocean

The main attraction in Split is Diocletian's Palace, built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian at the turn of the 4th century AD as his vacation home. I personally would have gone with a slightly more sturdy material for my vacation home as the palace is already showing its age after just 1600 years. Pfft (thats the sound of me scoffing). 

Parts of the "palace" in clear disarray and Split-ting apart (I have no idea why I took this picture)

What's actually really cool about this palace is that half of the city of Split is built into it. You might say the city is Split between Diocletians palace and the surrounding area (no one would say this). I should probably back up and explain that this palace isn't just one lavish giant structure (like you have in your mind), but a huge area of many building enclosed by outer walls. More of what you would think of as a fortress. 

Looking out from the bell tower. All of the buildings in the immediate foreground are inside the palace walls (longest caption ever)

How did the city come to exist inside the palace? I'm glad you asked. In the 7th century, the nearby residents fled to the walled palace in an effort to escape the invading Croats (see previous post about confusing conflicts in the area). They setup homes and shops inside the walls and to this day, the area remains the main functioning part of the city. Apartments are for rent inside towers and fortified walls and banks sit upon stone streets built over a thousand years ago.

Shops are built into the thousand year old fortress walls

The other cool thing about this fortress is that Game of Thrones filmed a number of scenes here. OMG FREAK OUT. GAME OF THRONES. Split was the setting for many of the shots of Meereen and I spoke to a number of locals who were extras in various scenes.

A scene from Game of Thrones was shot here

It was apparently this scene ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is the entrance to the dungeon where Khaleesi keeps her dragons

And here's some other random pics of the "palace"

The local palace bell tower

A courtyard in the palace that my dad really enjoyed....its too bad that guy is blocking the shot

Statue of Gregory of Nin...its good luck to touch the foot. Also, why is that guy following me around and standing in all my pictures? (ok, now this is the longest caption)

They call Croatia, "the land of of dudes walking into your pictures", well actually I just call it that. Most people call it "the land of 1000 islands" because they have over 1000 islands. I feel like they should probably do an exact count so they can call it "the land of 1106 islands" (1106 may be an incorrect number of islands, so once the count is complete, you can substitute the real number. You can say "the land of x islands for now"). In any event, you might say Croatia is Split into many pieces....I wouldn't say that, but you might. I had the opportunity to visit exactly one of these islands, Brač (pronounced Brač). It was nice. I took a picture.

A picture on Brač...one of x Croatian islands

The last "big" trip I took within Croatia was to Plitviče Lake National Park. It was pretty. Not really sure what else to say about. It was a cold day. Enjoy the pictures.

Matt Levin in front of a water fall at Plitviče Lake National Park

The leaves are changing colors...reminds me of back home in the Boston suburbs

They have caves in Plitviče

Here's the money shot! Looking down on the boardwalk from above. Boom! It was all worth it!

On the way back from Plitviče, we stopped at the famed sea organ in Zadar. It's an architected musical instrument with a series of pipes built into the steps on the water that make different sounds as the water fills the pipes (which doesn't sound anything like an organ). But its still pretty interesting.

The sea organ. You can see the slits where the steps are Split and the water flows through

Below, there's a video of me listening to the sounds of the sea organ. If you listen too many times, pretty sure you'll get a Split-ting headache. Annnnnnnnnnd scene.

Total countries visited on my trip: 15 (Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, England, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Germany, Croatia).

Oktoberfestivus

A quick note to the readers: 

I am constantly receiving boat loads of feedback from my loyal fans (by loyal fans, I, of course, mean myself). Most of it is very positive, but there is occasionally a snarky remark and sometimes even a suggestion on how my blog could better improve someone's life. I take this responsibility very seriously. One piece of feedback I have received lately is that there is too much time between my posts and then the posts are actually too long and dense and filled with so much useful information that it's hard for any one person to digest in even several sittings. Well my loyal readers, I am listening and I am going to try to post smaller portions of my trip, but more often. 

And here is the first of said smaller posts...

Almost 4 months ago, I went to Oktoberfest. It was in September (because there is no month named Oktober...the spell check doesn't recognize it).

I'm wearing the blue shirt 25th row from the front, 6th from the left side

Something like 600,000 (pronounced 600,000 when you say it in German) people per day go through Oktoberfest. This means that lodging is really, really expensive and sells out way in advance. With the lack of foresight and planning that we put in, we were forced to stay in tents....tents in a park....tents in a park setup by a bunch of Belgian guys in their mid twenties looking to make some money from high prices and do a little partying themselves. Webster's dictionary defines this situation as: "shit show".

Our five-star hotel in Munich

These lovely accommodations actually ended up feeling appropriate, though, given the scene and atmosphere of the festival. It was just complete, no holding back drunkenness.

Warning: Graphic image above (or was I suppose to warn you before the picture?)

Hi Brecht and beers

Good night Abe!

The Oktoberfest grounds is 100 acres of carnival rides, food stalls and of course giant beer tents. There's about 15 of these beer tents on the grounds that are actually more like warehouse size open areas with picnic table style seating and up to 10,000 person capacities.

Hard to get a feel of the scale...but its big

There's a brass band at the center of each of these tents and they play such German hits as Sweet Caroline and The Time of my Life. Yes, you're basically at a giant super drunk wedding without having to remain in control because nobody's grandparents are watching. Every 10 minutes or so, the band plays this song (which everyone sings along to) "Ein Prosit, ein Prosit", and then a bunch of other words in German that I don't understand. I'm told it is to pay homage to the late great German Chancellor......


Helmut Schmidt.

I may have had a pint or two

Remote Year bonding time

In between songs the general action in the tents is when someone stands up on the top of their table, pumps up the crowd and then chugs a full liter of beer. Everyone cheers and pounds on the table in support. This process moves around the room as different people stand up on their table for their ten seconds of glory. I saw one guy chug three liters in a row; OMG (I think he's dead now). And to answer your next question, no this activity is not sexist. I saw several women stand up and chug a whole liter, as well. I, of course, did not partake because I have a bad back (or something). But I can definitely chug a liter of beer....I swear.

Chug! Chug! Chug!

Daaaaammmmn Girl!

Now let's discuss the lederhosen. It's translates to "leather trousers" (or "leather pants" if you pronounce it in American). Most everyone was wearing the outfit, but I'm pretty sure that I wore it best.

Ich bein Deutsche

And the female equivalent outfit is called the dirndl, which of course translate to "show off your boobs".

Lovely dresses ladies

In closing, I'd just like to summarize by saying Oktoberfest was a great time, I'm glad I went and I would recommend it. However, I will not be going back any time soon (ever). I am now 25 years old and so too old for this.

Next month (which was actually almost three months ago now as I'm writing this), we head to Croatia and on a trip to Spain with Mr. Levin (my father...you can call him Sid).

Total countries visited on my trip: 14 (Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, England, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Germany).

Did Serbia make the BelGrade?

What's a Serbia? 

Going into month 7 of my Remote Year journey, I knew basically nothing about the place to which I was headed. Of course, this was probably even more true when I had gone to Bolivia, so I wasn't too concerned (and because I'm a badass). This whole year I've basically done zero research on upcoming places and I just show up and figure things out (so badass). It's definitely nice to not have to do any work planning things out and I guess that's why I'm paying Remote Year (or I'm just a badass). 

My first impression of Belgrade was that everyone smokes. EVERYONE (old and young alike). And everywhere. I've never seen a society as smoke friendly as Serbia. The place is basically one giant cigarette. At customs they checked my passport and forced me to smoke a cigarette before I could enter the country.

My second impression of Belgrade was....two thumbs up (except for the smoking). It had a nice mix of both old and new. For example, it had a fortress....that held a music festival.

The famous music festival fortress of Belgrade

We must protect this house...with a wall

The third impression I had of Belgrade was that it's obsessed with Nikola Tesla. You know, that guy who invented that car....I think. He also invented a bunch of important products dealing with electricity in the early 1900s including harnessing alternating currents which I don't understand at all, so I'm just going to stop pretending like I know what I'm talking about. In any event, Tesla's parents (also Teslas) were Serbian, so he's like a big deal in Serbia and they even named their airport after him. They also have the Tesla museum in Belgrade which is full of magic tricks....or it might be science.

Some sort of magic....or possibly science

Of course the big draw at the museum is Tesla himself. He's there.

Seriously.

Tesla himself....in ash form...in an urn.

Was that too morbid?

Serbia had another important historical figure alive around the same time as Tesla whom I'm sure you know very well. That's right, none other than Gavrilo Princip. He's one of your favorites, isn't he?

Mural of Gavrilo Princip in Belgrade

Gavrilo is the guy who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 sparking the first world war #historyIsReal.

You may also remember Serbia from events back in the late 1990s. You actually probably don't remember since that was like 20 years ago....and also because the country was called Yugoslavia back then. But the point is that NATO bombed buildings in Belgrade and other targets in the area as a way to stop Slobodan Milosovich from occupying Kosovo. First, don't you just love the name Slobodan? Second, just so we're clear, Slobodan was trying to hold onto Kosovo despite the large Albanian population who wanted independence. This whole situation is not to be confused with the NATO involvement in the Bosnian War where NATO stepped in to defend Herzegovina (I know you wouldn't confuse those). And don't get me started on the Croatian Independence war where "A self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, created as a nation state for ethnic Serbs living on Croatian territory, which was occupied by the remnants of the Yugoslav People's Army (from Serbia and Montenegro)."

I'm not trying to make light of the subject, but its clearly very complex and I wouldn't do it justice trying to explain it. At the end of the day, though, in the mid 90's, Yugoslavia was broken up into seven countries; Bosnia and Herzegovina (thats one), Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. And there's still definitely tension in the area, especially among the older population, and this tension was very visible at times with Croatian-Serbian relations (they like to say mean things about each other...sometimes jokingly...sometimes not). Since the NATO bombins happened in the 90s, pretty much everyone with whom we interacted actually lived through this. Memories range from being a child sent to live with foreign relatives for safety, to having school cancelled for three months, grabbing beers and watching bombs fall on the city from a nearby hill.

Memorial to NATO bombings in Belgrade

And just one other name you should know from Yugoslavia history is Tito. He was the president of Yugoslavia, but really embodied the whole concept of the country. His death in 1980 was what started the whole unraveling of the different states. 

Tito's Tomb - very exciting picture

That's it! No more history, I promise!

Moving on, as you probably know (because I talk it about it all the time...like all the time!), one of my life goals was to bike through the Serbian country side. And guess what? It finally happened! 

I joined a biker gang

A bunch of us rented bikes and rode across (part of) Serbia. We ended up at some river where we spent the night sleeping on boat houses.

This is a boat house

This is me standing on my boat house

One of my other dreams, which you all knew too well, was to go to Romania. And wouldn't you know it, I got to check this one off the list as well.

One arm in Romania

That's right, I had a whole arm in Romania. I actually rode a bike for miles (they call them kilometers in Serbia) through the mud from a co-working facility out in the country side and illegally snuck my arm across the border (I am now an international criminal). I'd still like to go back to Romania some day to put my whole body in the country (and see slightly more of it), but for now...mission accomplished.

Stuck in the mud on the way to Romania

After retiring from the life of international crime, I went back to Belgrade for a football match (what you probably call soccer, or what you probably call Calcio if you are from Italy (just found that on Google)). This was no ordinary Calcio match. This was a derby match! THE derby match! (a derby is a match between two teams from the same city). This rivalry regularly results in rioting before the match even starts. We were given instructions such as "wear closed toes shoes so its easier to run" and "if anything happens stay low and follow me out". And although it ended up being a relatively calm match, it still looked pretty cool.

Burn it down

Yes, this is a calm match

That night, the whole city was lined with riot police, but they weren't just there for the derby riots. They were also there because some people in Serbia aren't, lets say, as culturally accepting as one would like. Basically, the Serbs know how to throw a good protest against gay pride and the next day happened to be the pride parade in Belgrade. Since 2010, Belgrade has hosted a pride parade with some sort of violence taking palace each year. In 2010, "Anti-gay rioters fought with about 5,000 armed police, throwing Molotov cocktails, bricks, stones, glass bottles and firecrackers; the police used tear gas and rubber bullets." Although things had been getting less extreme each year, the whole downtown area was completely barricaded and the area was basically void of people except for riot police.

Policija

I happened to walk by the main pride rally area as they were cleaning up and there was a group of priests of various religions sprinkling holy water and such on the area to "cleanse" it. Oh religion, you're so silly.

One nice thing that happened for me in Belgrade was that I joined a running club. I made friends with a number of locals through the club and they might be reading this blog post about themselves right now. There was even a 10k race in the city when I first arrived and I met running groups visiting from Macedonia, Montenegro, Libya and even Israel. It was quite the multi-cultural experience 

That guy in the white shirt is from Montenegro

I win! No...I barely finished

Belgrade also inspired my with another business idea (all my ideas are just bringing things from other countries to America). River boat clubs. As in clubs on river boats. As in a boat on a river with a club. As in a river with a club on a boat. As in a club on...shut up Matt! In Belgrade these clubs are called Splavs and they line the river with flashing lights and loud bass all night long. Why hasn't anyone put a boat club on the river in Manhattan? WHY?

Matt's river boat club...coming soon to an America near you

And here's a couple other random pictures of Belgrade that don't really fit into any of my stories.,,

Umbrellas

Parliament

One final thing I did in Belgrade was to volunteer with a refugee aid organization. Serbia has a large number of refugees, mostly just passing through, who are in need of food, water and clothes during their time in the country. I was able to talk with a number of them while they waited in line for food. Most of them were 18 to 25 year old men with similar stories of coming from Afghanistan or Pakistan and passing through Serbia trying to reach the rest of their families in other parts of Europe. Some of them had stories of walking for five days to cross borders. It really does seem unimaginable to be 20 years old and leave your home and even your country to go to some unknown place by yourself. Although its terrible, I'm glad I was able to experience a tiny bit of this situation.

See, Matt isn't completely a bad guy.

I'm not sure if it came through in this post, but I really liked Belgrade and it was definitely one of my favorite months of this trip.

And now I will leave you with a traditional Serbian dance:

Total countries visited on my trip: 13 (Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, England, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Serbia).