Just a few of the pictures I took around Eastern Europe of things you just don't see in the States.
This was a mini-mart/7-11 type of store (0-24 indicates that it's a nonstop, open 24 hours store), that sells chicken. Every time we passed it, I thought it looked like there was a giant turd on top of the chicken's finger.
A contacts vending machine I found in the Moscow airport.
At a "beach" in Belgrade, Serbia (a dammed off river area), this ginormous water bottle (easily 3 stories tall, maybe more) was also a water spout/fountain. Most original marketing gimmick I have seen in a long time.
Just a random kid out walking her Shetland pony on the sidewalk. (Which begged the question, was it really a Shetland pony? or some other breed of midget pony?)
This was my hotel room in Timisoara, Romania. No sheets on the beds. Just this oddly folded blanket/comforter. And everything was folded into triangles.
Pepper cream cheese? (which, by the way, we ordered, and was exactly that- cream cheese with paprika and pepper in it). Grilled "chilly" pepper? I do love poorly translated English!
I didn't mean to buy this. I was attempting to ask if some chocolate candies were chocolate covered pomegranates. I kept point at this can and then at the candy. Next thing I know, I've purchased the drink, and not the candy. It was absolutely disgusting. Little floaty bits of aloe jellies in it. So gross.
I finally have a few minutes to myself for the first time
since arriving in Europe last week. I just double-checked the date and time,
and discovered it is Thursday, July 10. I honestly thought it was Monday.
Traveling on tour can mess with your head that way.
I guess I’m going to have to give this travelogue in reverse
order, and jump all over the place. My brain refuses to remember the beginning
of this trip. It was too long ago.
Tonight I’m in Timisoara, Romania, a town once known as the
Paris of Eastern Europe. It’s also famous for being the city of roses, and the
first city in all of Europe to have electric street lamps. All odd claims to
fame. But as it turns out, Timisoara is one of my all-time favorite cities.
There is a large town square (piata – pronounced pee-awt-suh) in the center of
town. My hotel is “Hotel Central,” which is conveniently right off this square.
The hotel itself is very clean, but something of a 1960’s stark nightmare. The
bathroom has an accordion door to it, which locks from the outside. What would
you ever need to lock a bathroom door from the outside for?
The hotel has very typical European, tiny, narrow elevators,
designed to hold 2-3 people. I call these the violent elevators. Someone else
described it as “they buck you off.” It’s pretty comical. You squeeze into this
shoebox of an elevator, which is all mirrored on all sides, and go to your
floor. It may or may not actually squarely reach the right floor. But when the
doors open, the elevator gives a violent bump. So far I’ve had to grab the wall
each time to keep from falling over. It’s amusing to watch someone else do it
for the first time.
Which brings me back to last week in Serbia. As I’ve
mentioned, I lived in a floating bar/clubhouse. Each of us that lived in there
have had a rough time getting our land legs back under us. I figured it was
just my Meniere’s Disease doing exactly what I would expect it to do after
living on water, but apparently the other 3 houseboatmates have it too. The elevators
here send all 4 of us into a funky swirly dizzy spell for just a minute. For me
it’s just a very intense Meniere’s attack. I think it’s the violent jolt with
the mirrors, throwing off the sense of balance, and the part where we went from
sea level to high mountain altitudes in one day.
Which brings me to the town before this one. We have been in
Baile Herculane, Romania for the past few days. We drove to Timisoara today.
Herculane (pronounced hair-kyu-lawn) was sort of the Park City or Deer Valley
of Romania. Except without shopping. It had several high end hotels (by
Romanian standards), and some fun history to it. So maybe it was more the Heber
City of Romania? It was way up in the mountains, and simply beautiful. It
translates to the “Bath of Hercules.” It’s the natural springs and cold bath
houses where Isis, Neptune, and Hercules all supposedly came to rest and relax.
In typical Romanian style they’ve built a whole town
around their historical marker, but haven’t bothered to fix up the actual bath
houses. So you can only look at them from the street or through a boarded up door. Very cool marble statues, and nice
cool air. But no springs, because in typical Romanian tradition, they’ve blocked
off the water, to reroute it for some unknown use. So really it’s all a town
about “something cool used to be here, we can tell you about it, but not show
it to you.”
Our experiences in Serbia were, according to my companions,
typical dance tour activities. We stayed with host families, went on a tour of
the city, visited the orphanages, performed with the host dance company, went
to church, had a party with the hosts, and left. Pretty normal stuff for Clog
America apparently.
Our time in Baile Herculane was anything but typical.
Everyone was surprised. We were put up in a 4 star hotel (I even got a massage-
more on that bizarre experience later), ate (for free) in the hotel restaurant,
walked to the performing venue (right next door to our hotel) with was an
outdoor amphitheater, and had tons of free time. We also got a tour from a nice
guide who took us up to a cave and to a zip line.
So let’s stop here and discuss clogging. I’ve now seen the
Clog America show several times over. I’m becoming an expert on this one show. I’ve
also seen Serbian folk dancers, Romanian, Georgian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Turkish,
and a dozen others. (I have an affinity for the “tiny Ukrainian dancers.” They
dress in little ninja costumes and do this cute little “he-man” dance. I love
it. I can’t wait to see it again tomorrow.)
Most of these dances are pretty
similar in style. Men kick, women prance daintily around them. There are lots
of accordions and saxophones. You really can’t tell the difference between most
countries. And after you’ve seen about 5 of these dances, you’ve seen them all.
It can get pretty boring. But one thing is for certain at every show. They LOVE
Clog America. Our team gets up there and does the Charleston, a 50s swing
number, and a bunch of hoedown numbers, and the crowd goes wild.
We’ve come all this way for approximately a 10-20 minute
show every evening. Today we were supposed to be in a parade before the big
show. (I use the term “we” lightly since I’m not actually a performer.) But due
to the rain that never happened. After the parade got canceled, the sun came
out. So the band (and our band is awesome) went in costume to the middle of the
square, and put on a concert of their own. They got a huge crowd all around
them. Romanians were dancing in the square and calling out requests for “Clementine”
and “Susannah.”
Speaking of our band- 3 members of the band are family.
Nate, Adam, and Chrissy Keller are siblings. Their dad, Ivan, is also on tour
with us. I believe Nate and Adam have been on over 10 tours with Clog America,
and Chrissy maybe 5. Ivan is 77 years old. He just likes to see his kids
perform and to travel. He keeps his schedule pretty easy, but he tries to keep
up with the rest of us. He’s a very nice man, and always doing kind things for
everyone around here. Yesterday at the outdoor show in Herculane the team was
presented a trophy from the festival, and the Kellers were acknowledged. Much
to everyone’s surprise, the announcer also acknowledged Ivan, sitting up in the
stands. The crowd demanded he stand up and take a bow. I’m sure we missed
something in the translation, but basically they gave him a standing ovation
for raising 3 talented children. It was really an interesting cultural moment
to see how they honored this father. It was very touching for the Americans to
witness. (Of course, we all adore Ivan, and agree he deserves more ovations.)
My free time is rapidly dwindling, so I'll end this travelogue here. I'll write more about the rest of this trip the next time I'm caught up on sleep and have some free time to myself.
And again, please go visit http://clog-america.blogspot.com and http://instagram.com/clogamerica for more pictures and stories. I'm putting a lot of work into those!
Forgive me the poor quality of this video. It's just for fun to give you an idea of what life was like in our little boathouse in Serbia last week.
There was much laughter, chaos, and stuff everywhere. This was taken probably around 11 pm on Sunday night. We had 4 women in a studio apartment, living above a bar/clubhouse. Our bathroom was about the size of a train or airplane bathroom (plus a shower).
There was no furniture in the room- just 3 mattresses on the floor. (You'll notice there are 5 women in the video, including me. That's because one of the dancers, Ashlynn, was visiting us for a few hours.) We did find a few small chairs in the bar that we used as shelves.
Every time there was a lot of movement downstairs or a boat would go by in the lake, our little boathouse would rock. We had clothes hanging from a makeshift clothesline, and they would sway back and forth when the room rocked. I was trying to capture it on video. If you look closely, you can sort of see how the clothes never hold still.
But mostly you can just see the complete chaos we turned the place into. It was a brand-new apartment, very clean, and a very fun and unique experience!
Today was orphanage day. We had a wonderful time visiting an orphanage in Belgrade and then a home for mentally disabled men. It was so much fun. I taught the little girl in this picture how to blow bubbles, and the joy of playing with a slinky. I may have even taught her to say slinky.
I won't be in many pictures during this trip, since I'm the one taking pictures of everyone else. There are lots of stories and pictures up on the Clog America blog and Instagram feed today.
All in all, a great day.
Stories and pictures to come when I have 5 minutes to myself.
Okay, maybe not a boat.
I'm on/in a floating club house on a river. But it's not a river house. It's also not a lake house, regardless of the fact that we've dubbed it the lake house. I'm in a club house owned by a dance club (Klub Talija), where they come to hang out, drink, etc. It's the base camp for this leg of our trip. Our group members are staying with host families nearby and around Belgrade. I'm staying with a few of the other older staff members (some very fun ladies), in an apartment on top of this floating party house.
More stories and pictures when I'm not quite so tired!
Be sure to follow us on Instagram.com/ClogAmerica and clog-america.blogspot.com for lots more pictures and stories.
