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Post by Tok on Mar 18, 2006 17:19:43 GMT -5
'tis true
layla, i'm a serb, so it wasn't me you had sex with. Damn.
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Post by layla on Mar 19, 2006 17:45:06 GMT -5
S - you would love my grandma. She's my favourite person in the world. She used to be in a Russian circus! She's awesome.
I really enjoyed Prague, but I didn't get to see anything else of the Czech republic. I'd love to go bakc there & really spend time in the city, explore it a bit more. It would be fantastic to see it without tourists... I didn't go to Slovakia - how is it? To be honest we didn't really consider it, I just assumed it'd be much harder to get around & way less touro-friendly than places like Czech Rep or Croatia (which is very pretty & more Euro-chic than the rest of the Eastern bloc).
Have you seen Hostel?... I'm scared of Slovakia.
So what took you to that corner of the world anyway? Friends, adventure, travel, work? All the above?
Tok, I think I know who I had sex with & I think it was you.
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Post by Sisy on Mar 20, 2006 3:10:14 GMT -5
i love that corner of the world. i love riding the trains around. i love prague. i love olomouc. i love karlovy vary, even if it is run my the russian mafia. slovakian cities are dull and still too rooted in commie blah blah buildings to be that lovely, but it has some crazy and interesting stuff too... also, there are lot's of wild castle ruins that you can hike up to and explore. blood queens ran rampant there... and crazy cook antiquarian book shops.
in bratislava, the gastronomy industry was a sorry state. they have only a handful of asian eateries: one claims to be korean, another chinese, another mongolian, et cetera, yet they all have the EXACT SAME MENU, even down to the font and graphics. bizzzzzarrro. they did have a nummy and stylish sushi bar, though.
how lucky, to have a grandma who was in a russian circus. hat's off to you, la.
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Post by Sisy on Mar 20, 2006 3:10:47 GMT -5
i have not seen hostel. any good?
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Post by layla on Mar 20, 2006 3:21:51 GMT -5
blood queens ran rampant there
Part of my trip around Europe was on a Contiki tour (I know...less adventurous, but its so convenient) & one hungover morning as we drove from one part of France to another part of France I had to sit next to this bubbly perky blonde American goodness type cheerleader girl. She already thought I was super-weird, what with me not being blonde & all. So I told her about the various vampire myths - and the various actual vampire-like tyrants & queens of Eastern Europe in the days of yore (I'm a bit of a nerd on that subject...remnant from my angsty goth times).
By the end of the bus ride she was like "oh my god, I'm NEVER going to Eastern Europe! its so scary!" haha
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Post by layla on Mar 20, 2006 3:24:12 GMT -5
Hostel is set for the most part in Bratislava.
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Post by chem 1 on Mar 20, 2006 12:48:22 GMT -5
Tok, which half-Yugoslavian are you? Serb? Croat? Macedonian? Have you been there at all? I'd love to visit all of the former Yugoslavia beyond Croatia, but I think its probably better to wait until some of them are EU members, just for ease of travel etc. Theres so much history in the Eastern bloc countries. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary. I think actually waiting for them to gain EU membership is a bad idea because when they do prices will double if not triple assuming they adopt the euro..which i imagine they would because its only sensible if your currency is already below current euro value. Best to get them cheap while still are...even though they may be a bit underdeveloped. Many countries pre EU were quite cheap before but were then subsequently fucked over nicely by the price increases brought by the euro...Spain in particular. I guess its part of the progression though because i suppose it helps the country economically in the long run. The aussie girl living with me last summer had spent the previous two weeks along the coast in Croatia and said it was amazing. She said it was really cheap and pretty much anyone will happily fuck you...girl or guy...having orgies on the boats of locals is also apparently quite easy. But she had some books on Croatia and it indeed does sound very cheap. The island regions on the adriatic coast look amazing. Im really considering going at some point.
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Post by Sisy on Mar 20, 2006 15:21:02 GMT -5
blood queens ran rampant therePart of my trip around Europe was on a Contiki tour (I know...less adventurous, but its so convenient) & one hungover morning as we drove from one part of France to another part of France I had to sit next to this bubbly perky blonde American goodness type cheerleader girl. She already thought I was super-weird, what with me not being blonde & all. So I told her about the various vampire myths - and the various actual vampire-like tyrants & queens of Eastern Europe in the days of yore (I'm a bit of a nerd on that subject...remnant from my angsty goth times). By the end of the bus ride she was like "oh my god, I'm NEVER going to Eastern Europe! its so scary!" haha i love it!!!!!! you are cracking me up....what with you not being blonde & all... prices were already skyrocketing to equalize with the euro dollar when i left in 2000.
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Post by layla on Mar 20, 2006 17:53:34 GMT -5
The aussie girl living with me last summer had spent the previous two weeks along the coast in Croatia and said it was amazing
Was her name Martina by any chance?...
You're right on EU membership = increase in prices for the fomer Yugoslavia, but at the same time greater ease of travel is going to promote tourism also. I think at the moment all the foreign money going into those countries is from people from other countriies visiting their ancestral lands. And hopefully more tourism = cheaper costs within the country, as well as greater safety.
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Post by Sisy on Mar 20, 2006 18:56:04 GMT -5
hrmmm...indeed. i guess it's just the adjustment that's gonna hurt the people, especially farmer/peasant types who don't profit directly from the increase in tourism, yet still have to shell out even more money to meet their basic needs. still, one would hope their government takes some kind of new-dealish measures to prepare for that sort of thing.
ever seen Warhola? the documentary about andy warhol's ancestors/family back in a backwoodsie town in Slovakia? at one point, andy sends them some drawings that could essentially make them rich and change their mushroom picking way of life, but they don't know any better and end up giving the drawings to their children to make paper horns.
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Post by layla on Mar 20, 2006 19:08:58 GMT -5
ha, no I haven't seen that. I didn't even know Warhol was Slovakian...
My grandma & her siblings have relatives in parts of Slavic & Baltic Europe (mostly Russia, Finland & a few scattered around Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia) they still send money to each month. It blows my mind, they're living below the poverty line. Which they weren't under Communist rule. So all you capitalists can stick that in your crackpipe & smoke it.
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Post by Sisy on Mar 20, 2006 23:29:51 GMT -5
yup...there are a lot of unhappy people in teenie towns throughout eastern europe who made out a lot better during communism.
ever read much Milan Kundera?
yeah, Warhol was technically "Czechoslovakian." Now that the countries have separated, however, they fight over him... He was born in a small town in what is now Slovakia, though.
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