Goodbye Europe

After ten amazing and special months in Europe, we say goodbye. As I write we are bus riding our way to Istanbul, to Turkey, to a place we have called home many years ago. It is surreal to travel to Turkey as vagabonds after so many months of wild camping, hitchhiking and simply living in the present. We will be mostly staying with friends, who have showers and warm homes. Turkey seems tame, mild. Well, especially compared to Albania, but we'll talk about that later.

For now, I want to let you into some reflection of mine. For the last three months, we have put off WWOOFing and volunteer work for a more spontaneous, adventurous way of travel, one where we wake up each morning and ask, want do we want to do today? Where do we want to go? What are the deep desires of our heart that we want to pursue today? Maybe it's learning woodcarving, or fishing. Maybe it's going for a swim. Maybe we have no plan and then suddenly God brings something incredible to bless us and grow us (bad experiences have often turned into the biggest blessing, never judge a mishap until it plays out).

This way of travel has brought about a lot of patience and frustration, but also countless beautiful relationships with fellow travelers and locals. Kindra has mentioned the French couple, Esteban and Zihya, that we have traveled on and off with. They have become some of the closest friends of our trip if not our lives. Our most recent rendezvous in Montenegro with them was the sweetest. Esteban and Zihya, or as we lovingly called them "the Frenchies," found an abandoned bar on the Montenegrin coast to wild camp (it had a covered terrace, great for an approaching rainstorm), and they invited us there (we had taken a detour to the Croatian island of Mljet while they continued onward). It was such a beautiful time of laughter, card games, wine, a bonfire on the beach, deep conversations, impromptu dance party, etc. We wandered the local city together, sharing a kilo of spiced cooked meat (cevapci) while waiting out the rain. A local stray kitten befriended us and became our temporary adopted friend, which we adoringly named Cakuhaut, French for peanut. Cakuhaut was a lover, it simply wanted pets, belly rubbing, and to be with you. He slept in our tents and stole our hearts.

Then came our collective move forward to Albania, a wild and chaotic country that we knew nothing about, but were drawn to visit. Hitchhiking there didn't work, so Esteban negotiated a cheap deal with a taxi and across the border we went. Our driver, a character of a guy from Shkoder, made for an unforgettable ride. When we hit the Montenegro Albania border, he offered the border guard a cigarette (which he took) and got out of the car to chat it up. I was half expecting us to be invited to coffee or have a drink with the guards! More like a social club than a border, it was such a refreshing contrast to every other crossing. We were then led on a whirlwind tour of Shkoder, meeting the taxi driver's girlfriend, acquaintances, fish salesman, and finally ending in coffee. Kindra and I had a quick decision choice to stay in Skhoder or continue to Tirane (the capital) and on to Istanbul; we chose to say goodbye to the Frenchies and move on. We miss them!

We had the craziest bus driver to Tirane, and along the way we gawked at beautiful mountains and donkeys on the main highway. The next morning we left for Istanbul via bus on the shittiest road you could imagine (though with warm people and unbelievable scenery, Albania is at the top of our visit again list). The border to Greece was, as expected, very slow. While our bus waited in line, locals outside sold barbecued meat and newspapers; I went to chat it up in my nonexistent Albanian and hope our superlong overstay of our visa in the EU wouldn't result in a ban or huge fine. But a few hours and one bag search later we had our entry Scotch free into Greece.

Greece turned out to be a beautiful nightmare, our connecting bus to Istanbul was to be overbooked due to Turks on holiday, and since we had a ticket but no seat reservation we were told it would be a three day wait! We tried everythiiiing, other bus companies, even toyed with detouring to Bulgaria, but in the end a cheap hotel was a safe refuge until our stand by departure 24 hours later. The town of our temporary Greek prison, thessaloniki, turned out to be relaxed and social, and I stuffed down four pork gyros during our stay :)

There you have it! Turkey here we come! Il ginc yolculuk geliyor!

We Have A Bag For That

Writing a blog while you have to pee is certainly one way to try and distract yourself...we'll see how this goes! Austin is out looking for a wild camping spot near the old town area of Dubrovnik, which we have heard marvelous things about. Currently it is mainly windy and a bit cold, and we have our bags, but hopefully the marvelous bits will come soon.

Bags, bags, bags. The vagabonds sop. Our bread and butter. When a good sized, durable bag is worth it's weight in gold. After over a year of traveling, we have cone to some important conclusions: organization is key to our mental health, and bags are essential for organization. Our possessional lives can really be broken down to what bag they are in: essentials bag (always kept very accessible), liquids bag, general food bag, lunch bag, breakfast bag, papers bag, sleeping bag, tooth care bag, tent bag, misc bag, water filter bag, clothes bag, and of course, our back packs, which are really just glorified big bags. We have big and small zip lock bags, cloth bags, paper bags, and endless plastic bags. Any new item we obtain? We have a bag for that. And thus we maintain our sanity, after one too many "'where is the hand sanitizer?' 'I thought it was in your pack' 'well, I've emptied my entire pack into a confused mess on the dirty ground and it's not there'" moments.

Huzzah! A brief glimpse into our luxurious practical lives-We are learning as we go. We have also assembled a list of travelers rules which we pretty strictly adhere to now, which we now offer you at no charge! Ahem:
-never pass up a water source
-never pass up a bathroom
-never leave camp without headlamps and Swiss army knife
-always have extra fuel
-avoid getting into a new destination after dark if possible, ESP if it's a big city
-bring your passports on every mode of travel bc you never know when they will check
-and finally, if you are hungry and there is cheap good food available, just eat some

And there you have it! Not the shortest or most glamorous list, but it is our in process vagabond survival guide. And constantly being influenced by the amazing people we meet, who so often seem to be 5 steps ahead of us in terms of knowledge and preparedness. Like the Slovenians who kindly refused our offer of measly snacks, because they had caught fresh beautiful fish they were cooking. We do not know how to fish yet, but hope to learn soon! Or the American that showed us his amazing stove he made out of a beer can, as we blush at our expensive mass produced camping gas canister. Or the French that showed us how they made amazing food that made us cry-mushroom, chicken, rice, creme fresh, curry, spices, onion-makes our rice and veggies fare look pretty measly and theirs cost just as much as ours. But therein lies another grand truth of our journey: there are always people more prepared, more informed, with different skills than you. And it's a beautiful thing. It is through this reality of community that we can really learn from and teach one another, and there is not much room for pride in this lifestyle. Which is also a beautiful thing. It is one of the things that makes community so engaging and fun, and at times challenging. admitting your own limitations and inabilities, and finding the courage to try Sonething new (like the "special medicine" of the Slovenians for my cold- a big shot of nasty ass liquor, which actually did help a bit.)

Not to suggest that we have been just scraping by and surviving! We have been essentially hopping from one beautiful waterfront to another with views that rival a 5 star resort-for free :) although my recurring cold/cough friend has made things pretty rough at times over the past three months, and I think more people have seen me in some embarrassing state of humanity or another like peeing or shaving my bikini line than is reasonable.

In fact, we just left a recent favorite, the island of vis off of the Croatian coast. We scored an amazing camp spot right by a beach, and met a wonderful French couple who we are now loosely traveling with. There was a certain night that a lovely slovenian kayak group of five camped with us, (turns out Slovenian wine is fantastic!) and at any given moment you could hear English, French, Slovenian or Croatian being spoken-the Swiss couple were having a low key night, so no German dialect of Swiss that time. A truly international evening! Even yesterday on our nauseatingly windy but spectacularly beautiful 5 hr coastal bus ride to Dubrovnik we sat next to an Argentinian couple, bringing our daily language mix to French, English, Croatian and Spanish. Ow, my brain!

And here we are-enjoying the last moments of sunshine along the coast before the winter sets in, contemplating what to do for that chilly season. Should we try to work in turkey? Or head to Africa? Maybe get a cheap flight to Asia and enjoy their warm winters? Or fly all the way to Australia and find work there? Not sure yet, but hey, that's what prayer and the holy spirit is for-yahoo! What we know is it will all be well, because we are outrageously loved by the perfect lover and king, and there is a classical concert tonight that we will try and listen to for free with our frenchies before a group home/camp made Mexican dinner. I'd say we know enough :)