Rumbly in my tumbly

Ugh, my stomach is feeling a bit wonky tonight, so I'm going to stay in tonight and keep quiet and reflect on my first week out of the US.

This is the first trip that I've taken outside North America since I got back from South America at the end of 2007. And while some things are completely the same, I feel that others have changed a little bit.

I still feel comfortable in the hostel environment, hanging out with other backpackers...for the most part. I think it's good that places like the Balkans tend not to attract first-time travelers, so the average age of backpacker is more mid- to late-twenties. So I'm not super ancient compared to everyone else in the hostel. And I'm constantly reminded that sometimes a kickass hostel in a random city can make somewhere totally unmemorable memorable. For example, last night I stayed at the Berat Backpackers in UNESCO World Heritage city Berat, Albania. The town was somewhat interesting, although Albanians have not gotten on the "let's not throw all of our plastic bottles all over our ancient castle" bandwagon yet, but the hostel was populated by a wonderful, hospitable staff who made the night totally great.

I do, however, find myself with significantly less patience than I used to have for the "I've got the solution to all the world's problems, and I'll tell you all about it over this beer" type of person. One of the things that I've come to realize is that no country is perfect. No nation has it right. And I guarantee that your "solution" is probably you regurgitating something that you read for a university class. You can point at the US and tell me all the things that are wrong with my country. And I'll often agree that the things that are pointed out are flaws. But I will also say that there is not one country that doesn't have something royally screwed up about it. And I find that sitting around picking apart people's homelands is a waste of time and energy.

However, I love spending time talking about *travel* with other travelers. There was an excellent group of folks that I hooked up with in Tirana who was all quite well traveled. And we spent hours sharing our favorite travel anecdotes, hostel experiences, favorite cities, countries, meals. It was lovely. And it's kind of nice because I'm realizing that I've made the leap from being well-traveled "for an American" to just straight up being well-traveled. There will *always* be someone who's been places I haven't been, but more often than not, I can join in the conversation regardless of what part of the world is being discussed. Because I'm at the point where the places that I haven't been to (with a few exceptions -- Australia, Scandinavia) are the places that most people haven't been to. And that's kind of cool.

A random observation from this trip: I've met a lot fewer women travelers than I have on most of my other trips. I don't know if it's the region of the world or concerns about religion or what, but there has been a way higher percentage of guys in these hostels than girls.

Some actual travel content: Ohrid is gorgeous. It's a lakeside resort town situated in western Macedonia, and it's quite lovely. I wish I had more than two nights to spend here.

I think that the rough plan for the next week is to head to Skopje on Saturday for two nights (one of those days spent on a day trip to Pristina in Kosovo) and then on to Sofia for one or two nights and then Plovdiv for one or two. Because I have to be back in Istanbul in exactly one week to catch my flight to Bishkek. Which I'm quite looking forward to. I'm keen to settle in and see what adventures await me once I'm living in another country and not just traveling through.

Off we go!