PLEASE VIEW THE PHOTOS UNDER "MY PHOTOS."  I AM NOT SURE WHY THEY WERE NOT AUTOMATICALLY UPLOADED ONTO THE BLOG AS BEFORE.

What, you guys thought I was done blogging just because I`m back home in America now?  I was reading through my blogs and realized how much detail I left out!  It made me question, "Did anyone get a clear idea of what I was going through then?"  There was a lot of information I`m glad I included in my blogs because reading them triggered the memories that may have been forgotten otherwise.  But there`s also a lot of information I left out, usually due to lack of time or money to sit in front of a computer for hours. 

I`ve always been a very nostalgic person and lately I have been missing my international friends immensely.  I look at my photos quite often and I view the videos from time to time, which I still have to edit and upload onto a dvd for public viewing!

As I write this blog, I am reminded of my good Slovak friend Martin.  He has been encouraging me to write a memoir about my travels because he thinks my stories are crazy, serendipitous, and unique...as does one of my sisters as well.  Our story is a great one to tell. 

When I left Bouriege, France for Cologne, Germany, I had a 3 hour wait at the airport before catching the bus to take me to Cologne.  It was during this interim that I met Martin and his friend...and a redheaded college student who was also catching the same bus with me.  I spotted Martin and his friend sitting on the floor eating and drinking.  When they caught me looking, they struck up a conversation and the next thing you know, we are taking photos with one another.  Then Johanna, the redhead, walked by and she joined the photo session too!

What I remember most from that initial meeting with Martin and his friend is a lot of loud laughter, mostly on my part, and a genuine invitation to visit their home land, Slovakia.  I was rattling so many names of every other country on my agenda and they kept teasing me about including Slovakia.  Lo and behold, two months later I found myself deeply infatuated by eastern Europe as I sat in his mother`s home and his childhood home.  It was one of those moments when you just want to pinch yourself to make sure that it is really happening.

Martin lives in Nitra, about an hour and half from Bratislava, the capital.  Nitra is the founding city of Slovakia and clearly has more history than Bratislava.  Two guys came from Austria and discovered Nitra hundreds of years ago.  The locals appreciate Nitra whereas the tourists only care about Bratislava.  I arrived in Bratislava at night and was late meeting a friend (who consequently left me since there was no way for her to phone me) because there were delays on the train, so I continued on to Nitra alone...or so I thought.  Slovakia is well known for its many mountains.  They are quite unusual to me and I`m not sure how to describe them because I`d never seen anything like them.  They are silvery and very, very rugged and rocky.  (I only saw pictures on postcards)  The mountains of the Cote D`Azur are intriguing as well but in a different way.  They are brown and form weird shapes, if my memory serves me right.  I saw them up close and personal from a car and they look scary.

Whenever I told other backpackers that I went to Slovakia, their first question is, "Did you go to Bratislava?"  and as soon as I said, "No," they quickly lost interest or thought I was ignorant for leaving it out.  The Slovaks assured me that I learned its history in the right place, Nitra.  I felt so too and still stand by it firmly to this day.  (When you are backpacking, there is this eerily common travel route that  EVERYONE apparently follows.  I was totally clueless until I started talking to more and more backpackers.  My route was different and I didn`t hit all the major spots like everyone else and I didn`t care.)

I met a nice, outgoing, and very friendly Slovak girl at the bus station and we quickly became friends.  Her English was good and she had me laughing the whole way, talking about her boyfriend in the music industry, her job at a travel agency for her English boss, men in general, traveling, and shopping.  In the short hour and half ride, Sona invited me to stay with her for the month of October or longer in her new home (I forget the name) and on a 10 day vacation with her in Montenegro.  Upon arriving in Nitra, she called her taxi friend to pick us up so that we could get a discounted rate and she paid the fare. 

Two days, Sona returned with a taxi driver and we went to Wall Street in Nitra.  They really do call it "Wall Street," patterned after NYC`s Wall St.  Because Martin had to work during the day, Sona acted as my tour guide and she was perfect because she loves history and she knew everything about the Slovakian history.  And since it had been a long time since she visited all the historical places in Nitra, she enjoyed it as much as I did.  We had such a lovely time together and she was supposed to take me to Bratislava the next day, but I didn`t hear from her...ever again.  I was puzzled because I thought we had a wonderful connection and I would like to have become better friends with her.

Martin was very disappointed in her and expressed his feelings to her, but I kept telling him that she was not obligated to do anything for me and I really appreciated everything she did already.  She never followed up on the Montenegro trip either so I went to Budapest instead.  Martin was very protective of me, perhaps the most protective person I met during my long travels, and it was very honorable of him to care for me in such a way. 

There was a day when I spent with his parents, his sister who was visiting from England, and her two adorable, intelligent boys.  They are half Slovak and Greek and they speak Slovakian and English and learning Greek.  Upon being introduced to them, their inquisition started, "How many languages do YOU speak?"  I was totally caught off guard as I felt like I had to quickly defend myself, "Well, I speak English, Vietnamese and some French."  To which they replied, "We are half Greek and we are just now learning to speak Greek.  We take classes every Saturday.  One day we would like to visit Greece."  And the younger one also included French in his list of languages he speaks.  I mean, these kids are 8 and 10 years old!  (Right, Martin?  And please correct me on my knowledge of the Slovak history)

I found the Slovakians to be very gentle, peace loving, humble, and friendly people.  There is a sense of genuiness, tenderness and compassion about them that was pervasive in everyone I met:  the taxi drivers at the train station, the grocery people, passersby, the restaurant servers.  The Germans are also friendly, helpful people but they also carry an air of arrogance and extreme pride.  It was interesting talking to Martin about eastern Europe versus western Europe because there is certainly a stereotype that eastern Europeans are less intelligent and less cultured than western Europeans.  This stereotype is completely ludicrous but even some of my good western European friends honestly do share this opinion.  I was appalled though not surprised because I know human nature.  Eastern Europe has so many beauties; it`s just as rich in history as western Europe; dare I say that I like the humility that eastern Europeans possess which their counterparts don`t; their native homes are truly astounding in nature and architecture; and they do speak English too!

On my way to Budapest, I befriended yet another kind Slovak who was traveling to the same city I was heading in.  And like Sona, thank goodness for Teodor because he translated for me on my last day in Slovakia.  Martin was worried about me but I assured him that I would be OK.  Had he known that I would soon meet Teodor, he would`ve been relieved!  Teodor and I rode together, and he decided to hang out with me for a couple of hours until my connection train arrived to take me to Budapest.  He was on his way to visit his parents for the weekend in Nove Kamky, his childhood town.  Teodor, like so many of my serendipitous chance meetings with people, was the perfect tour guide for Nove Kamky!  He wanted to show me everything:  every statue, the square, the downtown, the restaurants, the park where he played as a child, and his elementary school.  It was so important to him that I captured every part of Nove Kamky.  I was very touched by this stranger`s kindness and tenderness towards me. 

With the last of my Slovak crowns, I treated Teodor to a Chinese lunch and then shared the last of my chocolate bar with him.  He in turn gave me his bottle of lotion because I desperately needed some for my dry hands.  The weather had taken a sharp turn and I hadn`t needed lotion till then.  When we set out to look for a place to eat, we were challenged in two ways:  the first was to find a vegan friendly place and the second was to find something that was open at all and something that served more than just bread.  He said it was impossible.  I said it wasn`t.  When I spotted the Chinese restaurant, he couldn`t believe his eyes.  When I shared my chocolate with him, he couldn`t believe his luck because he loves chocolate.  I gave it all to him because I`m not much of a chocolate fan.  I had exactly enough money for our lunch and water.  We couldn`t stop laughing at our luck that day.

Compared to the rest of Europe, Slovakia (like Croatia) is very inexpensive to live and travel.  When Martin took me to the mall in Nitra, I was very impressed by its grandeur and the globalization of commericalism.  I prefer the historical part of Nitra though and its cobblestone streets.  While the euro is ridiculously higher than the American dollar, I`d strongly urge everyone to give eastern Europe a fair chance of travel.  I had NO idea what to expect before or even when I got there but I`m thrilled that I did.  Because of that brief, serendipitous moment in a German airport, not only did I make a good friend but I had the opportunity of a lifetime to visit a country I`d never imagined I would.  And I loved it so much that I`ll be back for a return visit.