Author: stephiestewart

Hello dear readers,

I am thoroughly enjoying being in Stockholm, Sweden. If you are looking for a place to visit that has high class living standards for everyone, beautiful architecture, well dressed people, arts and culture, and a very ‘Harry Potter feel,’ then Stockholm is just the ticket.

I honestly cannot recommend anything in Stockholm that isn’t absolutely wonderful. It is simply a world city where anywhere you go will be nice. I thoroughly enjoyed walking around on the promenade in the island, where the Old Town section is, going in and out of the shops and looking at the different things in the windows. There is even a pub called The Hairy Pig Pub. For me, that is simply delightful!

Stockholm is like one giant IKEA store. There is in fact the first original IKEA store nearby where I am staying (I am staying in a great house in Huddinge, which is a small town right next to Stockholm). There are gardens in Stockholm to walk around and explore the natural beauty, like Djurgarden, for example, mixed into the city.

Stockholm is a delightful mix of old and new in a very seamless fashion. Everything is a bit expensive in Stockholm, but that means the standard of living is very high for everyone, also. The commuter trains are clean and comfortable, and the buses run on time.

If you fly into one of the airports surrounding Stockholm, you have to pay about $17-20 for a bus to take you into Stockholm. From there, you can take any commuter train or bus, you just have to buy a ticket. A single journey ticket costs about $4.

I am staying in a great Airbnb in Huddinge, which is 5 stops by train away from Stockholm. The roommates are great, they play games, watch movies together, go on excursions to the forests and lakes, and basically welcome you like a good friend. Here is the link: Room in Huddinge with awesome roommates

So far, it seems to be a very ideal society.

Now for the photos. As always, all opinions are my own.

Hello!

After Athens, Greece, what could be better than going back to the country right next to Romania, Bulgaria? It’s not a real question. It’s a rhetorical question, and I asked it because I was just in Athens, where Socratic methods of thought were born. The point is, I didn’t expect to like Sofia at all, from anything I have read or heard (which is not much). However, I was totally surprised.

Sofia is an excellent city! I love nature, as you all know, and Sofia’s huge green parks with blooming tulips and trees, real old trees, made me feel very much at home after the concrete jungle that was poor Athens, Greece.

Now, it might occur to you if you follow me, that I have a very simplistic mind. The fact is, when I am travelling, I do have a very simplistic mind. Food, nature, art, music, shelter, warmth — I am thoroughly reminded how life is not so easy out in the wild where I would be helplessly lost if I tried to survive away from civilisation.

The thing is, young kids these days (in general, and I have been told never to generalise) are kind of mad at the ‘state of things.’ Lots of economic hardship around the world, lack of internet privacy, feeling disillusioned, hopeless, etc. about global climate change and overpopulation and pollution — you know, the big picture. It all sounds pretty depressing and let’s face it, watching the destruction of our home is never easy. I mean, hey everyone, where are we going to find another habitable planet anywhere near our galaxy?

Okay, I strayed away from Sofia. The point is, Sofia was once under communist rule, but it is not any longer, and while I don’t know the state of its economy or government rule, it is a very nice place to be, from my vantage point. The streets are wide, there are buses, street trams, the metro, public parks to play in, and promenades to walk and shop.

Despite the fact that citizens of Bulgaria find it really hard (or impossible) to get a visa to the United States, their way of life doesn’t seem so bad at all, unlike Romania, its neighbouring country. Of course, good and bad quality of life is entirely based on our own point of view, but from my line of sight, these people are doing just fine. At least, on the surface. What do I know? I am just an observer from a different place.

I walked from Vasil Levski Stadium to Sofia University, up around the magnificent old monuments and buildings, stopped in the National Museum of Art, which had a kind of black and white screen printing exhibition which none of the people there understood but thought it was ‘interesting,’ and down to the old Roman city remains of Serdika, by the mosque, and then through the shopping street Vitosha to the Bulgaria Square, which has a lot of fountains leading down from what I think was the National Palace of Culture (according to my paper map).

Food: the pastries are excellent. As for anything else, I cannot say. I know I am the bastion of healthy living in all other areas, but when it comes to travelling, these cheap pasties and croissant shops that line the streets always capture my money. We don’t have them in the United States. They are an excellent (carbohydrate only) food!

Getting around: You can use the Metro, which is very cheap, about 1.40 Lva per single ride, or you can take the bus or street tram. I had a lot of time, and I like to walk, so I walked. I like to see the sights that way.

Also, did I mention there is a giant mountain right beside the city? Beautiful.

Time for the photos. As always, all opinions are my own!
NOTE: Until I can get back to Munich HQ, my photos are not yet operational. These are not my own, but they show you what Sofia looks like.

Hello!

I am currently in Bucharest, Romania, which if any of you have read or seen Dracula, is the spooky nation (well, more of the region of Transylvania) that inspired the story of that infamous, lifeless immortal.

Honestly, I don’t like Bucharest, but I have the feeling that were I to stay longer in this spooky city, I would fall madly in love. It is just so delightfully creepy! However, it is hard to adjust to, that is, it’s a really hard switch to make from the beautiful sun-and-sand locations I have spent nearly the last two weeks of my European country hop about. There are policemen dotting every few hundred meters and sirens of police cars going off about every hour or so. For some reason, there is a dark cloud over Bucharest that I highly suspect has a lot to do with the poverty of the country and the history of its transition from empire to communist country. Coming from the United States, it is a little hard for me to realize that I am in Romania, which is in eastern Europe and in a completely different historical story than the western world.

Living in the free world — I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, and anyone else who envies my visa. They say I come from a land of complete freedom and opportunity and I am not even aware of what I was born into. They say this because for them, visas are expensive and difficult to obtain, and America is still seen to be the country of opportunity.

While I do understand the resentment, it really has hurt my feelings over the last few years to hear this kind of commenting. I don’t tell them that it is bad in the United States, too, that lots of people in their twenties have massive student loans and high interest rates for college education, who can’t find jobs appropriate for their learning or for their desired career, and who live on pay check to pay check. It is not like Americans don’t have fear of poverty — it just looks less noticeable because we don’t really see it from the outside. But many Americans are cutting back on food and health care to have more money to spend elsewhere, and food insecurity is a problem that affects a high percentage of the population (meaning wondering where the next meal will come from).

I have not been alone in experiencing poverty, in fact, I have lived since turning 18 on a very modest income and lifestyle. It’s not because I don’t want to work, because I worked part-time all throughout college. It’s because afterwards, when I wanted to join the workforce, I was up against hundreds or thousands of applicants who had very similar credentials for the jobs I was applying for, jobs that suited my career field and degrees, and I was getting rejected everywhere.

Also, to be completely forthcoming, I did not want to join the corporate workforce and sit behind a desk like the rest of my Management and Finance majors went on to do in Big Four companies and well known firms. I wanted to be self-employed, make my own decisions, build my own lifestyle, have freedom to work when and where I wanted, and be happy doing what I loved.

That means you’re ‘freelancing’ or ‘working online’ and that really doesn’t make much money in the first few years (or at least, not for me, and I was working multiple part-time jobs most of the time). So basically, I was living just like they were, despite being in the land of the free and the land of the opportunists, and I was experiencing just like they were the hunger and the struggle and the often depressing facts that the ‘Great Recession’ had lent to my whole generation: that even though we had tried so, so hard to get ahead, things had become worse and worse each year, with opportunities shrinking and salaries dropping and hours increasing.

While this was all too much to say to these critical foreigners, I did take in their points of view and try to see it from their side. It really must be hard growing up in a country where there is no opportunity whatsoever to rise, no matter how hard you try. This is what Bucharest seems like to me. The once beautiful old city was largely demolished and turned into communist-style block buildings in 1965-89 under Nicolae Ceausescu’s leadership.

Bucharest may be in a critical place for standards of quality of life, but I can tell just in this short time of being here, that it was once a vibrant cultural centre in between the two World Wars and this undercurrent remains through all its instability and changes. I walked through the Old Town, stopped in one of the churches there and admired the frescoes on the ceilings, saw the Cismigiu Garden’s spring beauty, walked around and around seeing the remains of the old town’s architecture, the old palace that is now the National Museum of Art, the National Bank of Romania, and so on.

Prices are very low for the USD and Euro in Romania (about 4 to 5 to 1 Lei), and I was surprised how cheap I could buy things like food. I didn’t feel like changing my few Euros to Lei, so I stuck to using my credit card in markets and bought the pasties I have been seeing in shop windows everywhere. They taste amazing, and once again I am very thankful I can tolerate gluten! I really don’t drink alcohol, but it seems that lots of places exist for nice meaty dinners combined with wine or beer. I am not really a meat eater, though, so the pasties were enough for me.

By far my favourite cultural sight in Bucharest was the Cismigiu Gardens, which I was told are the oldest gardens in Bucharest. They were blooming with tulips and had leafy boulevards leading around a lake with a fountain in the middle, with lots of other blooms and lots of chirping birds. I thought this was a very necessary respite from the unhappy hustle and bustle of Bucharest. I say unhappy because it seems like the numerous amount of policemen are around to prevent any protests from springing up. When I was walking around Cismigiu Gardens, I saw and heard protesters crowded on one side of the street across from me. It simply feels like organised crime has gained a serious foothold in Bucharest due to changing governmental policies and a lack of public affairs attention to lifestyle standards.

Still, don’t be put off, I would recommend Bucharest to anyone who wants to come here. I went out again at night and was rewarded with a completely changed face of the city: there were strings of lights hanging over the main streets in a very festive way, and nearby the University, which is near to my Airbnb, an amazing funky jazz band was playing in a small tent near the Cismigiu gardens and street sellers. I caught most of their one hour performance and it was thrilling to hear. Despite the occasional rain and the cold (I am finally able to wear the winter jacket Raphael made me bring along), I managed to find a sight that was inspiring and original at last.

It really made coming to Bucharest worth it!

Now for the photos. As always, all opinions are my own.

Hello!

A quick Google search will tell you that Palermo is the capital of Sicily, which is an autonomous region in southern Italy. It is also about 2,700 years old, and an important historical city to Italian history, lying on the coast of the island of Sicily on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

What Google can’t bring to life is experiencing the city on foot, for yourself. Though I spent only a short couple days in Palermo, I was astounded by the beauty of the old monuments that lie on the Quatro Canti, the Four Corners, quadrants. There are two large streets that are promenades during the day for pedestrians and bicyclists, which bisect each other like a giant +, thus the name, Four Corners. This outlines the Old Town, which is where the old monuments, the churches and theaters, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites, lie.

This is what the promenade looks like during the morning. You can faintly see Mount Pellegrino at the end of the horizon guarding over Palermo.

I was lucky enough to find an Airbnb right in the heart of the Old Town, located in a small street right behind the Teatro Massimo, run by an Italian husband and wife, Nino and Maria. I was met by Maria and her small dog at Teatro Massimo at night, who walked me back to the apartment and made me feel very welcome. Maria showed me her house, which was a three (or four!) story building which she had turned into an Airbnb and decorated with colorful paintings and colorful accessories as if it came straight out a small town in South America (or maybe that is just how people decorate their residences in southern Italy, I do not know).

I was so used to getting crammed mercilessly into spaces full of other people, like the tiny airplanes, the crowded buses, the crowded metro cars, crowded street trams, crowded tourist areas, and crowded hostel dorm rooms, that having a whole room to myself was like getting a present for my birthday. I was so overjoyed I think I cried later that evening (at least, I think that was the reason, and not the chemical-induced cry I sometimes get from eating too many sugars…more on that later).

There was even a lilac bathrobe for me waiting in my dresser, a colorful towel (there was nothing NOT colorful in this Airbnb), and another colorful blanket should I get cold in the night. There was a full kitchen, equipped with utensils, pots, pans, and more colorful cups and decorations. What made me so happy was the Italian style breakfast Maria showed me tucked away inside a closed cupboard — inside there were little sweet cakes, buns, raisin bread, regular bread, cereals, jams, Nutella packets, toasted breads, a tea selection, a coffee selection, and more sweets. There were oranges in the kitchen, lemons, salt, spices, a toaster, a gas range, and inside the refrigerator, little cupcakes for her guests.

Maria is a real hospitalitist! She explained to me with pride how she had had the place for 14 years with her husband and was now the owner, as she took me up to the rooftop terrace and showed me, also with great pride, how close we were to the UNESCO monuments adorning the Quartro Canti. With a wave of her hand, she swept it over the mountain range that sheltered and guarded Palermo since its first settlement and said, ‘here we are, alora, we are here, how you can see, the Quatro Canti, here and here, and the churches, the San Cataldo’s church and the church of Saint Catherine, UNESCO World Heritage sites, monuments for all humanity.’

When she said that, ‘for all humanity,’ I realized suddenly (yet another of those life-changing epiphany moments) just how close I was to the beginnings of civilization, standing a few hundred meters or so from churches that had been built hundreds of years ago in much different times. And they were still standing, in all their glory, in the midst of machinery and modernity, for all of humanity. The humanity of it made me want to cry, not out of sorrow, but because I was really there, on that rooftop with this amazing lady, who was telling me about UNECO sites that existed for all of humanity. The whole world.

She had founded a center for underprivileged children with her husband over 30 years ago, she said, when I asked her about the paintings. There are about 50 or so paintings, all of the same size, hanging on S-hooks from wires all around the apartment, a gallery of art. They were made by the children of my center, she said, adding that of course they were no longer children, but adults with children.

If you need me, Maria said, before turning to her own room, I am here. She was looking at me in a very kind way, as if she had X-rayed me the way a discerning mother can do to a child, when I told her I was traveling alone.

‘Please, Stephie,’ she said, before turning in, something about her posture reminding me very much of a nun, ‘eat something.’

It was her tone that struck me the most, a gentle admonishing and also a tender, almost motherly phrase to a wayward child, and also a welcoming entreaty into her home. In some cultures, people do not eat in the house of their enemies, and accepting food from someone is often considered an ultimate act of kindness and hospitality. I was struck because I have often been told to eat more, due to my tall, thin appearance, but from Maria, it almost seemed like she was telling one of her wayward children in her centre to take a pastry for the road. Maybe it was the missing patch of my left eyebrow that moved her, or the overall disgruntled appearance and airport smell of Traveller that was me, who knows. It was an interesting moment, one I shall not likely ever forget.

I gave a slight bow to her and said good night, and then did go to the Italian all-you-can-eat breakfast and helped myself to what was in store.

The next day, I wandered around Palermo, going down the promenade to the Quatro Canti, and looking about the Piazza Pretoria.

I admired the San Cataldo’s Church from the outside, although I did not go inside (I looked through the picturesque coffee table book on it back at the apartment, however), contented just to see it. I know, I know, you might shout, ‘but you were THERE, right there, why didn’t you go inside and look at the history?’ And to that I must answer, because I was happy enough to simply be standing side by side these beautiful monuments. I didn’t need to go inside to appreciate their beauty. Instead, I felt very bothered by the constant hustle and bustle of the streets, so I headed down to find the plants, in the botanical garden. Here, I found a bench and listened to the twittering birds for a while, appreciating the sub-Mediterrean climate, the flowering trees, and the greenery. I like nature. I know many people who don’t like it as much as I, but to me, it’s my natural element. People exist in nature even if they are inside four walls. I like being of it, in it, and around it. It makes me feel calm and alive, like I am Eve in the Garden of Eden, or as my best friend Raphael would say, a wood rose.

So, there I was, sitting in this beautiful botanical garden, decompressing from the traveling I had been doing the past three weeks, and trying to wrap my head around the fact I was in Sicily, southern Italy, in Palermo, with UNESCO sites right outside my Airbnb. So far on my Europe trip, I have been to Warsaw, Munich, Prague, Munich, Nuremberg, Malta, Nuremberg, Milano, Venice, and now Palermo. It is a lot of traveling, and I really didn’t stop to think about how it was until now.

To be honest, traveling made me very happy. I felt very free, away from worry, stress, anxiety, and any negative emotions. There was no one to yell at me, to tell me I was too fat or too thin, no one to apologize being late to, no one to tell me to act a certain way — I was finally free. The freest I had ever felt in my life, because I had planned the whole thing myself, and worked for it myself, and now I was enjoying how well I had planned it and budgeted the whole thing. Felt pretty good!

Lots of people, even those who love us, can say hurtful things and try to bring you down because they are feeling bad themselves or want you to be a certain way to save you from potential disaster. While it is nice to know we are loved and cared for, what I have valued the most about being in Europe is how kind the people have been to me when they have nothing to gain from my being there (besides my US Dollars, of course). No man has ever shouted at me yet, or approached me menacingly, or even molested me. Coming from ‘America’s number one college party town,’ where it is sad but true that hook up culture and alcohol and drugs are rampant, and strange attitudes about dating and sex exist where many young men treat teenage women like cheap prostitutes for the price of a few drinks, or make them think dating might lead to something but dump them after having had enough sex, I was so refreshed to not have to deal with any of that. For a few weeks, I was simply free.

 

Of course, I am a tourist for the time being, a traveler and mere observer. I cannot tell you intimately what life is like as a beautiful young woman growing up in Palermo or Nuremberg or Malta or anywhere else I have been. I can only relate my thin slice of observation, which is mostly: people are nice in Europe because space is so limited and history, so rich, with so many different ancient cultures allowed to blend together. It is not perfect, there is still poverty, there is still the struggle to live, and there is still heartbreak and loss mixed with love and happiness. However, I do have to tell you that as someone from two cultures growing up in America, I was very impressed with how nice Europeans are to each other, getting along, sharing space, and preserving their monuments for humanity. Although it may change (everything always changes), I hope others can experience Europe in the same way of appreciation I have. They may not be the richest country in the world financially, but I have to admit, the European way of life, on the surface, seems much more cultured and classy than the coarseness of American youth culture I have experienced to date.

A few more pictures for you from Palermo and that wraps it up. As always, all opinions are my own.

Hello!

Nuremberg was a short mid-point destination between Munich and my flights elsewhere, owing to the fact that Ryanair operates out of Nuremberg and not Munich. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant German city to walk around and enjoy the old churches in the promenade city square for a few hours.

Personally, Nuremberg had a bit of a chilly feeling for me in its city atmosphere. Perhaps it is because of my own scant knowledge of Nuremberg, other than its involvement in Nazi Germany and the Nuremberg Trials, or because the Metro lines have a kind of war time trench-tunnel feel with the brick walls and low, dark ceilings, but it was overall a creepy city for me. Not that that is a bad thing, per se. It has the vibe that it has seen a lot of sadness and dark days mixed in with its brighter future.

Here are some photos of Nuremberg during my journey around the pedestrian areas: