The Gingerino Challenge

2 Months Growth!

Those of you who know me well have most likely noticed the Raggedy Andy mop that’s growing on top of my head. I normally like to keep my hair relatively short and after a month of growing I’m typically in serious need of a good grooming. Somewhere toward the end of Romania I started complaining about my long and annoying hair and by the time we got to Slovakia Jen was sick and tired of hearing it. This normally meant she would break down, bust out the clippers, and go to work containing the fire spreading above my eyebrows.

This time was different. She threw down the gauntlet and handed me her challenge. If I can go six months without a haircut, she’ll let me eat all the pickles I want for a month (she hates pickle breath). If I crack and find the nearest pair of scissors before that time, I have to buy her all the belgian chocolate she wants for a month – and that’s not cheap. The deal was made. The date has been set. The challenge has started.

My last haircut was carefully done by my Mother-in-law in San Francisco around the end of May. So, if I can make it into the month of December without harming a hair on my head, I win. Check back for updates on my “Gingerino” progress and wish me luck!

Pozitively Poznan

Poznan, Poland

If there’s one thing you can say about the Polish, it’s that they are fearless with their food. I think everyone could learn a few things from their culinary genius. Or maybe it’s just culinary bravery. I think that the Polish motto is “All ingredients can work together.” Nothing demonstrates this more than the steadfast milk bar. These little restaurants are called milk bars because of their heavy reliance on dairy to dole out protein to the hard working citizens. They do have some meat dishes, but those are the most expensive. So during our milk bar tour of Poznan, Gage and I did a lot of vegetarian eating. Since our little guide book didn’t give us a bunch of menu translations, we often found ourselves staring at menu boards and only being able to interpret about 6 words out of a few hundred. Our brains found it daunting, but our stomachs didn’t care if we were trying to interpret hieroglyphics, it demanded food. In other words, there was a bunch of blind ordering. We’ve had everything. A soup of milk, macaroni, and sugar. Buttered rice with pineapples, sugar, and whipped cream. Crepe-like pancakes stuffed with beets and cabbage. And it was all delicious. Let this be a lesson to all of us that there are no rules in cooking, only great combinations yet to be discovered.

Gage and I were able to enjoy this milk bar crawl because, well, we weren’t quite enchanted by Poznan. We did more eating than exploring. Now let me just calm down the Poznan patriots out there by saying that the city itself is perfectly fine, just not quite extraordinary. For instance, the market square has all the makings of a fine Polish tourist mecca if it wasn’t for a couple visual sins. The first being the freaky 70’s building the backs up to the gothic town hall.

Of course most residents of Poznan would agree that this architectural mismatch was a mistake. However, if you continue around the building to the front doors of the town hall you are again visually acosted by the adorable fisherman’s houses that appear to be painted like in the type of Aztec style that one would find in a kitchsy Mexican restaurant.

If it weren’t for the class and beautiful design of Krakow, Wroclaw, and Torun, Poznan would probably be able to get away with these strange eccentricities. But hey, there are plenty of people in the world who like irony, in which case the above mentionings will be seen as fantastic. More power to you.

We did take the time to visit the Citadel Park, which proved to be an interesting experience. The park is probably about 100 or more acres and it is interspersed with statues and sculptures every quarter mile or so. Interesting, but also a bit creepy as it appeared to be virtually abandoned. In the below picture you can see some of the headless statues in the background. Although at one point, we did come across a guy walking through the woods in full camouflage carrying a rifle who appeared to be just as shocked to see us as we were to see him. I know it seems scary, but my only regret was that we didn’t get the incident on camera. Don’t worry Poznan lovers, I know this isn’t common.

Poznan Suggestions:
- Rent a bike. Poznan is very wide and so it takes a lot of time to cover it. The city is also very bike friendly and the tourist office has bike maps that you can use to chart your path. And it’s the best way to see citadel park and Lake Malta.
- The milk bar in old town has the best pancakes (nalesniki) in Poland. Get one with any filling and you’ll be in heaven.

Try to Say It: Wroclaw

Wroclaw, Poland

Sounds like ‘Rock-law’, right? Wrong. It’s pronounced ‘Frots-swoff’. Yeah, that took us a little while too. Although I think that Rocklaw is a little more fitting. Especially the rocking part. I fell in love with this city. There’s so much to discover here. We spent four days in Wroclaw and I doubt that we even saw an eighth of the city. Not that it’s all that big, but every nook and cranny of the place has something cool for you to check out. When I asked a couple of Polish girls at our hostel in Krakow where we should go next, they both said Wroclaw and I can see why.

Krack-Wow

Krakow, Poland

It’s pronounced Crack-off. Or Crack-ov. Honestly I still can’t reach a consensus on how to pronounce most of the words in Polish. If there’s one thing you get tired of during traveling it’s trying to speak another country’s language with any amount of accuracy. We spend at least 4 days in every city we visit, though we’ve met a ton of people who consider 3 days to be a long stay. I have no idea how these travelers have the time to learn Hello and Thank You. It’s easy to get lazy about learning languages, though, especially when half of the world has taken the trouble to learn how to speak English. Of course if they’ve taken the trouble to learn our entire language, the least we can do is learn how to say thank you in theirs.

Prelude to Krakow

Sorry for the lack of posts, but it appears that computer time is at a premium at our current hostel, so I haven’t been able to do one of my long drawn out blogs (the next one being on Krakow). So to hold you over until the next blurb, I bring you this video of our visit to the Collegium Maius courtyard where Nicolae Copernicus went to school and where our guidebook told us that we could witness a lovely clock ceremony at the stroke of 1pm. Because your time is valuable, I shortened the video by a minute and a half. Hope you like it as much as we did.

Slacking in Slovakia

Zdiar, Slovakia

As my father would like to say after a week in Florida with his two children, “You need a vacation after your vacation.” So often we pack our trips with ‘must do’ adventures and sights that we run ourselves ragged when we should be kicking back and enjoying that fine art of doing nothing. Seriously, when was the last time that you sat back and relaxed without force feeding yourself the stimulation of TV, computers, or music? Just chilling on the front porch with a cup of tea and the sweet sounds of silence.

Thanks to the Ginger Monkey for being the host sight of our Do Nothing campaign. I can’t think of a better place with better company in which to chill.

For more pictures and a video of us playing with the local kids, click here.

Budget Wise :: Budapest

I wouldn’t say we have an accurate idea of how expensive Hungary in general is, but we do know roughly how much it cost us to spend ten days in Budapest. And, just like in any other large city, you can do it on the cheap or you can spend a fortune. You can stay in swanky accommodations and eat at the trendy restaurants if you’re looking to put your wallet on a diet or, you can stay at cost-saving hostels and eat at the local Gyro stand if your bank account is already looking a wee bit underweight. So, Budapest is a city for all budgets, but here’s how we made out.

Culture Shock :: Budapest

Unfortunately the heat wave in Budapest kept us from exploring Hungary in the detail we were hoping to, but there was at least one major element of culture shock while visiting this beautiful city – Magyar. See, I’ve already lost you haven’t I?

Beat in Budapest

Budapest, Hungary

I believe that Gage and I are destined to live in a place like England or Oregon where we can enjoy a dense year-round cloud cover because at times, such as our last week in Budapest, we are reminded that a hot sun drains our energy faster than a slide show on the daily life of amoebas. I’m sad to say, faithful readers that we only spent one week in Hungary before heading north to cooler (in the temperate sense) lands. However, despite having had no time to explore the culture or develop any deep friendships with the locals, we did leave our sweltering hostel beds long enough to enjoy some sights and, as always, a wealth of local cuisine.

Budget Wise :: Romania

* Caution :: The following will not contain new and exciting stories about our travels but, if you’re a traveler yourself or plan to take a similar trip sometime soon, this post will still be of interest to you.

Since we don’t have a return deadline, the more money we save, the longer we travel. Unfortunately, while researching, we couldn’t find up-to-date resources explaining the costs of traveling in different areas of the world. When we did find some information it wasn’t clear whether that was for one person or two, and what expenses could be shared if traveling as a couple. Therefore, we decided to keep track of our budget while we travel so that we can have a better frame of reference. The following is an explanation of our budget while traveling in Romania.