Brazil Travel

The Brazil trip was kind of crazy. The Varig Brazilian Airlines bankrupted right after we got our tickets. And so we were put on several other flights from San Francisco, to Washington DC, then to Buenos Aires, then to San Paulo and finally to Fortaleza. It took us 36 hours to get there but at least we walked around Buenos Aires downtown for a few hours during the layover in Argentina . This was a cool reward for such travel maniacs as we are.
Finally we managed to get to Fortaleza, a 2 million tourist city in one of the less developed parts of Brazil. It is right on the Pacific coast, with beautiful beaches and great night life. But if you decide to escape far from crowds there are Lagoinha and few other charming small coastal villages just few hours from Fortaleza. Few more hours and you can get to Guaramiranga in the nearby mountains. When drinking beer in a tiny village bar with locals who hardly ever see tourists you will feel like watching or rather being inside of National Geographic.
After a week in the Ceara state we flew to Sao Paulo and from there we took a bus to Rio de Janeiro. For me that was the best part of our trip to Brazil. I find Copacabana and Ipanema the best beaches I have ever seen. Though they are very crowded it is fantastic to watch colorful crowd of men playing soccer, women? being topless and sellers walking around with dried shrimps, beer, ice cream, and pineapple. The ocean is perfect for sweeming, surfing or just playing. You are surrounded with it on side and with beautiful blue mountain peaks on the other side.
See our photos from Brazil

Alaska Travel

We felt very lucky when we got "free" tickets for our frequent flyer miles to Alaska for the Independence Day week (July 1 - July 8th 2006). The trip was just fabulous. In The Kenai National Park we took the Northwestern Fjord Tour, a one day cruise to the bottom of the glacier. On the way you could see few species of whales, seabirds, stellar sea lions, sea otters and more. Finally when we got the glacier we we saw this massive glacier calve. Our captain said it was the biggest glacier calving he had seen in 13 years! It took more then 15 minutes so even very sleepy people had enough time to make lots of . photos.
Afterwards we went via Anchorage to Denali National Park. You should try traveling from Kenai to Denali during the night in summer. It is like few hours of constant sunset followed by few hours of constant sunrise. The Denali National park is one of very few places left where you can still feel like in wilderness. There are not many official hiking trails, but instead you have a gigantic park where you can hike wherever you want. Take the park shuttle 80 miles deep into the park and if you are lucky you may see the highest mountain of North America; Mount McKinley, from its base to the top. Park officials say your chances of seeing the mountain are not very high: only 25% since it is surrounded by clouds most of the time but, again, we were extremely lucky and saw the whole mountain by Wonder Lake. The view is just amazing. If you decide to hike, try not to get to close to bears and wolfs because there are everywhere. (The hike when we came across a bear with 2 cubs was our best hike ever). (Best hike ever).
See our photos from Alaska.

Eastern Europe travel

This is a short summary of Anja's travel to Europe in April 2006.

Although I went on a business trip, not vacation, I got to see a lot in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Lithuania and I was really shocked by how beautiful Eastern Europe is. I guess people always focus on "highlights" like Prague or Krakow, or they totally skip Eastern Europe while they only travel to London, Paris or Rome. The truth is that Macedonia, lets say, not spoiled (yet) be Neckermann tourists, can be much more interesting. I met a guy who actually fears that this moment will come and one day someone will decide to start a ski resort in the mountains surrounding Skopje. So far though, not many Europeans even know where exactly the mysterious country called Macedonia is? The only exception may be Greeks who refuse to recognize their neighbor as there are some (ridiculous to be totally honest) historical issues between both states. Anyways, that's my travel diary. Enjoy!

My trip started in Romania and, to say the truth, I was pretty scared when my plane landed in Bukurest. I had no idea what to expect and I was really surprised when the airport in Bukurest turned out to be much nicer then the terrible one in Frankfurt, Germany. As I learned later, the whole city is currently being "restored" to get the past splendor it once had and Romanians do what they can to make their capital look prettier. This is NOT easy. Well, even if you try to be a really, really nice person, it is hard not to say that Bukurest is depressing and ugly. Years of communist rule led to this disaster. On the other hand, I liked Bukurest. I liked the people, I liked the convenient subway system, I liked lively plazas, malls, I liked the university with international crowd and awesome atmosphere, I liked that the language is so close to Portuguese that my Portuguese friend could understand almost everything, I liked the few orthodox churches that Ceausescu did not destroy, I liked that I finally saw places where the revolution of '89 took place and which I only watched on TV during this memorable Christmas 17 years ago (yep! I'm so old I remember).

It is hard to believe that Bukurest used to be called "the little Paris of Eastern Europe" but how many little Parises can you have? The city is full of life, there is night life, pubs, clubs, whatever you want. Many people speak English and are very open to tourists and foreigners. This also means that wherever you go you see small pink cards and leaflets advertising "best student escorts in Bukurest, we speak English, credit cards accepted". I did not see any historical buildings or great museums but wandering in the city, driving past the insane, huge Parliament (built by Ceausescu to be the biggest building in the world) was interesting enough. And one more thing: this city is not very safe, and it is better to be with local people that show you around. The level of poverty is high even by Eastern European standards and can be quite shocking. That's really sad because Romanians are a great nation, they really are.

Next country I visited was Bulgaria. I took an overnight train from Bukurest to Sofia and it was a mistake. Not that it was not interesting! I saw beautiful mountains and "real" nomadic Gypsies from my window (I don't know the politically correct term for Gypsies in English so I hope no one gets offended). Crossing the border was pretty scary though since the immigration officer disappeared with my passport for 15 looong minutes. Luckily I arrived safely to Sofia and I immediately I felt like home. I could finally understand what's written on public buildings, people were not as nice as in Romania but the city was safer and I was not afraid to walk alone. This was quite relaxing. It was 6 in the morning and the light was incredible.

I will never forget the downtown with orthodox churches, mosques and synagogues all in one area! You can get to the downtown very quickly from the train station and the ride with a streetcar is cool adventure when you come (almost) directly from US. The Christian churches in downtown are very old; one of them, below the street level now, is from the 6th century! If you walk little further you can get to the Russian orthodox church (beautiful!) and to the Alexander Nevski church, the most famous church in Sofia, maybe even whole Bulgaria. It was built in 19th century to honor soldiers who died when Bulgaria was being set free from Turks. I was waiting for someone and I had some free time so I went into this church and observed the orthodox mass which was fascinating. The old woman who was selling the sacred souvenirs decided to educate me when she understood I was not orthodox. She taught me how to make the sign of cross according to their tradition and hugged me when I finally got it. She then gave me a sacred picture (didn't want any money) and I felt again how much I liked Bulgaria. I bought a beautiful, handmade icon for my parents from one of the many sellers outside the church and I moved on to Plovdiv, in Southern Bulgaria.

One more thing: Sofia is surrounded by mountains and it makes the city even nicer. I just had this one single day there but I am sure it is worth staying a week or longer.
Plovdiv should be described in a separate article since I don't know how to write about a town which is 4000 or 5000 years old in just few sentences. A town with Roman ruins, a former capital of Aleksander's the Great father (yes, father!), a most beautiful little town with ancient cobbled streets, women selling sheep skin products, three colored cats sleeping in the sun and churches and mosques co-existing without any trace of conflict. If you ever get to Plovdiv, visit local museums and Roman ruins, buy a hand made blanket and then go to any restaurant. I am not a restaurant fan at all but Bulgarian cheeses and milk products are the best, food is just incredible!


Before going to Macedonia I spent a day in Blagoevgrad, a student town which is not very interesting itself but is pretty close to on of Bulgaria's main attractions: the Rila monastery. The monastery is high in the mountains: when Bulgaria was in the Turkish empire it was allowed to build Christian churches only far from cities, preferably in the mountains. The monastery is incredible; instead of writing about it I will just show you a couple of photos. A must see!



After exploring Bulgaria I finally got to Macedonia. The travel thru mountains was long but interesting. When I arrived at the tiny immigration station all the officers wanted to see me. They apparently don't see Polish people too often and they are rather bored. There is a box at their station where you can leave any information about corruption among the Macedonian immigration officers, I found it really funny. No one wanted any money for letting me into the Macedonian empire but I got a tone of stamps in my passport. The smaller country, the more stamps. Skopje, the capital of Macedonia is pretty small and you can walk to almost everywhere. It is cheap and cute but there are no major historical buildings since they all got destroyed in the earthquake some 40 years ago. The only old looking building resembling a castle is currently being turned into... US Embassy. It up on the hill so now looking for the US Embassy should be very easy in Skopje, not sure if this is desirable by Americans right now?Oh, well. Macedonia has very, very, very good wines. They are cheap and soooo good. I also tried frogs, the local beer and other goodies. I want to go back! I also explored some old monasteries in the mountains surrounding Skopje where absolutely no tourists are to be found, a great place for hiking and climbing that, I'm sure, will become popular one day. If you want to make it before German seniors, go now. They already travel to Rila, which is not that far away! Luckily, or unfortunately, depending on your political views, Macedonia, unlike Bulgaria, is not on its way to the European Union yet, so most tourist still consider it too wild and unworthy of their EURO and MasterCards. The airport in Skopje is the tiniest, cutest airport I've ever seen. It's enough if you arrive 30 minutes before departure, no worries.

Between drinking wine in Macedonia and drinking beer in Lithuania I spent some time in Poland, which was on my business itinerary but I am not describing it in this "article" since I basically went home and did not visit any historical places other then pubs in downtown Poznan. Let's move to Vilnus then. I traveled to Lithuania with my old Polish ID since I had to leave my passport in Poland. The immigration officer seemed shocked when he saw the booklet with black-and-white photo and hand written biographical data. They let me in though. Yes, European Union!!!! My old friend, Kristina, was already waiting for me at the airport and we spent the next 4 days having a really, really good time. I can?t remember all the names of beers and foods that I had in both Vilnus and Kaunas, all the churches I visited and castles I photographed. Vilnus became very popular among British party-goers after Lithuania joined the EU. Every club and pub we went to featured also drunk youth from UK. Almost every street boasts their own strip club or sex store or a casino and I have a feeling it is not Lithuanians who constitute the majority of their clients. Vilnus became a fun city and the Virgin Mary from Vilnus is not the most popular tourist attraction any more.