Hola, amigos. How you doing? I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but don’t worry; I’m not going to keep the Jim Anchower style going. I’m pretty sure Anchower would never use a semicolon.
I haven’t updated this blog since early December. Since then, I’ve gone to Slovakia, Türkiye, Malta and Kosovo. I’m going to return to the United States at the beginning of February, but before that, I’m planning to visit Spain and Morocco.
Slovakia
First up was a day trip to Slovakia. My old friend Arthur and I took a train from Budapest to Estergom, which is on the northern border of Hungary. From there we walked across the bridge over the Danube River to Štúrovo. Since 2007, Hungary and Slovakia have been part of the Schengen Area, so you can just walk across the bridge without encountering any border guards. However, you are supposed to have a passport or national ID card when doing this just in case a border official happens to be there. We had a good meal in Štúrovo, then walked back across the bridge to Estergom, then took the train back to Budapest.
Türkiye
Later, Arthur and I went to Istanbul and we had a great time. It was my first time visiting Asia, though we hardly spent any time on the Asian side of the city. We took the ferry from the European side to the Asian side, walked around a bit and then took the ferry back. The particular area we were in was incredibly crowded and we didn’t want to stick around too long.
One really cool thing we saw was the performance of what’s billed as the world’s oldest military band at the Istanbul Military Museum. (I say “billed as” not because I have any reason to doubt that; I’m just skeptical of any such claims.) We also saw some huge historic mosques. One of them, the Hagia Sophia, was originally built as a church, converted to a mosque in the 15th century, then became an interfaith museum in 1935 before being converted back into a mosque in 2020.
And there were plenty of friendly cats. It’s a good sign when cats are friendly and happy to accept petting; it means that they are accustomed to kind treatment from humans. In places where cats are afraid of humans, most likely human behavior has caused cats to be suspicious of human motives.
I also got to meet Democrats Abroad leader Keith Brannum in person for the first time. Keith and I had been in many videoconferences together because I had been the country leader for North Macedonia, but this was the first time we’d met in person.
One thing about Istanbul that was hard to adjust to was all the metal detectors. If you entered a museum, a shopping mall or even the metro, you went through a metal detector. I suppose it’s something you get used to after a few months, but it was pretty strange for someone who isn’t used to that.
Malta
The next trip was to Malta, an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. I went there to see an old friend whom I knew from my time in Minneapolis. This friend is a very private person who doesn’t post on social media at all, so we hadn’t been in touch much for the past 30 years. We did sometimes correspond by email, though. It was great to catch up with her and to meet her husband. Another friend of theirs was supposed to join in on this trip, but she was unable to get time off work. (Unfortunately, that’s a pretty common problem for American workers. There’s no legal right to time off. Most employers offer two weeks of paid vacation, but getting approval to take the time can be a problem in many workplaces.)
We spent most of our time in Malta’s capital, Valletta, which has some really interesting architecture and history. We also made a day trip to Gozo, the other large island in the nation. (“Malta” is both the name of the country and the largest island in the country, so sometimes you need to say “island of Malta” or “Republic of Malta” to make the distinction.)
One unusual thing about Valletta was the large number of honorary consulates. You’d walk by a building and there would be a sign indicating a law office or an insurance brokerage along with another sign showing it was the honorary consulate of a certain country. The precise powers and duties of an honorary consul vary depending on the country that consul represents, but typically this person is serving without pay and might issue passports and visas. Usually, but not always, an honorary consul is a citizen of the country represented.
The United States does not have honorary consuls in other countries, but it does recognize about 1,200 of these amateur diplomats from other countries. For example, here is a list of Hungary’s 17 honorary consuls in the USA. The United States has a full embassy in Malta, but it isn’t in Valletta; I presume this is because the compact nature of the historic city doesn’t lend itself to the sprawling nature of most modern U.S. embassies.
Kosovo
Later, I made a brief trip to Kosovo. That’s where I met Peace Corps volunteer Paul Rutter, whom I’d been in touch with for a long time but never met in person. Like me, he’s a Rotarian and a runner. We had meant to get together while I was in service, but never managed to do so, and I wanted to fix that while I’m still on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The problem was that it’s not easy to get from Budapest to his city in southeastern Kosovo. He suggested I fly to Pristina, then go by bus to his city, but there are no direct flights from Budapest to Pristina. Connecting flights were expensive and required flying a long distance out of the way, such as connecting in Istanbul. There is a direct flight from Vienna, but it leaves really early in the morning, so it’s not practical to take a train from Budapest to catch that plane. I also looked into traveling by buses and trains from Budapest to Kosovo, but found no way to do that without some ridiculously long layovers in small city bus stations.
Eventually, I came up with a solution: Fly to Skopje, then rent a car to drive to Paul’s city. Unfortunately, my flight from Budapest to Skopje was delayed, so Paul suggested that I book a room near the Skopje airport so I wouldn’t have to drive late at night. This seemed prudent to me, especially because I hadn’t driven a car since my mother and I drove from Yellow Springs, Ohio, to the hotel near Washington, D.C., where my Peace Corps cohort met for staging. (Peace Corps volunteers aren’t allowed to drive in any country of Peace Corps service. While serving, it would have been OK for me to drive while on vacation in countries where the Peace Corps doesn’t serve, but I had no reason to do that until now.)
Booking a room near the Skopje airport while waiting for my flight in Budapest was easy thanks to my smartphone; it probably took less than 10 minutes. When I got to Skopje, I was really glad I only had to drive to the hotel because it was a foggy night; driving a long distance in those conditions certainly wouldn’t be pleasant and probably wouldn’t be very safe.
The next morning, I had a big challenge: shifting into reverse. Although I first learned to drive in a stick-shift car, I haven’t owned a manual transmission car in 30 years, and I can’t remember the last time I drove a stick shift. It wasn’t obvious how to shift into reverse, so I opened the glove compartment to check the owner’s manual. Unfortunately, the manual was in Macedonian, a language I barely know. So I did a Google search on my smartphone for “how to shift to reverse in Corolla” and found this video from a Toyota dealer. Presto! Yes, I wasn’t an early adopter of smartphone tech, but I definitely see the value now.
I started driving and made my way toward the Kosovo border. I deliberately avoided entering Serbia even though one way to get to Paul’s city goes through Serbia. This is partly because I didn’t want to deal with border crossing formalities any more than needed, but especially because Serbia doesn’t recognize Kosovo as an independent nation. Serbia claims that Kosovo is still part of Serbia. The possibility that a Serbian official would give me trouble over this issue didn’t seem terribly likely, but likely enough to want to avoid driving through Serbia.
As I got close to the border with Kosovo, I made a wrong turn. Unfortunately, Google Maps isn’t as good in the Balkans as it is in the United States; roads often change without Google Maps knowing about the change. Also, Google doesn’t like to tell you that you should turn around after making a wrong turn; it just tells you how to keep going forward to loop around. So it told me to go on a very narrow road that turned into a very steep road and eventually turned into a dirt road. Despite this, it was still telling me to go forward several kilometers. I decided to ignore that advice and turned around, then eventually got back to the main road and to the border crossing. Thankfully, I had no trouble from either the Macedonian or the Kosovo officials.
I was surprised that for a good part of the trip in Kosovo I was driving on a road named in honor of Beau Biden. It turns out that President Joe Biden’s son had served in Kosovo during his career as a military lawyer. The younger Biden was in Kosovo on behalf of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to train judges and prosecutors for the newly independent Kosovo government. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015; the road was named after him in 2016 to honor his service to Kosovo.
While in Kosovo, I drove to the Novo Brdo Fortress. I figured I’d take advantage of the ability to get to remote places as long as I had a car. It’s an interesting visit, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re already in the area.
On my way back, I had more trouble with Google Maps. The system instructed me to go down a very narrow alley, which I really should have ignored. I get to the end and it’s telling me to turn right, but that’s blocked by a parked car. I tried backing up, but the alley was hard enough to drive through going forward and my attempt to back up wasn’t going well. A boy who I’d guess to be around 10 years old came out. I spoke in broken Albanian; he asked if I was Macedonian, perhaps because my rental car had Macedonian license plates. I said I was American, but driving to Macedonia. Thankfully, Albanians (especially those in Kosovo) really love America. The boy went and got a man who I presumed was his father, who moved the car that was blocking my way. I thanked him and got back on a normal street, then to the border crossing.
Then things went OK until I got near the end of my journey. I had plugged my phone into a charger the previous night, but the charger cable wasn’t connected properly, so it didn’t charge much if at all overnight. When I got close to Skopje, the phone died. I decided to look for a restaurant so I could eat lunch and ask them if I could charge my phone while eating. But the only restaurant I found was closed, so I decided to look for signs to the airport, since that would get me reasonably close to my hotel. (I’d booked a room in the same hotel so I could keep night driving to a minimum.)
There weren’t many signs indicating the way to the airport, but there were a few, and eventually I found a Makpetrol gas station in an expressway service plaza. I pulled off, filled the tank and went inside to pay. Thankfully, the convenience store part of the gas station had car chargers. I paid for the fuel, bought a car charger, then plugged my phone into a wall outlet near the men’s room. I used the men’s room, came out and turned on the phone and it worked again. Google Maps showed the way to the hotel.
Soon I’ll be off to Spain!