Age-Old Amusements

When you first arrive in Copenhagen, emerging from Central Station, you may hear blood-curdling screams.  It's not exactly a sound you like to hear in a metropolis.  But just look up above the trees and you'll realize you have nothing to fear.  Gleeful shrieks have been emanating from Tivoli Gardens since 1843 - it's the second oldest running amusement park in the world.  Above newly-bare branches, over and under sagging power lines, between the buildings, you glimpse people secured into chairs of all kinds.  Soaring, dropping, spinning, swinging, screaming, flying past. 

Tivoli Gardens doesn't really hold a strong torch for the second word in its name at the end of October.  All of the spring/summer flowers are long gone and pounds upon pounds of pumpkins have been brought in to take their place.  Halloween at Tivoli is an event, a "Halloween" that feels truest to the American sense of the word.  We're talking faux cobwebs, ghosts, festivities, excess.  The cotton candy is orange, as were the sprinkles on my ice cream cone.  It is gorgeous at night, lit with orange jack-o-lanterns and white twinkling lights.  We picked up two plastic cups of hot apple cider, homemade with spices and love.  This being Europe and not America, it was hard cider and there was an option to add a shot of rum, gin or port (we declined).  There was also a machine at every big intersection that allowed you to deposit your cup and get a 5 krone coin back.  It was like a slot machine where you always won.

Tivoli Garden's original name was Tivoli & Vauxhall, after a Parisian garden (that was named after the place in Rome) and the Vauxhall Gardens in London.  One of the oldest buildings there today pays homage to other international locations.  The "Chinese-style" Pantomime Theater was built in 1874 and has always featured Italian pantomime productions.  I'm not really sure why it was designed to look Chinese, but do wish I could have seen the mechanical peacock's feather that serves as the stage's curtain.   Surrounding the park are its restaurants,  The Hercegovina (billed as "a bit of Croatia," which is baffling), wagamama (an Asian food chain) and Hard Rock Cafe (USA, born and bred).

But the truest inspiration for Tivoli probably came from very close to home.  10 kilometers north of Copenhagen is Dyrehavsbakken, the only working amusement park in the world older than Tivoli.  There's no doubt that founder Georg Carstensen got his idea from there.  One of the throwbacks to that era still around today is the Tivoli Boys Guard.  The troupe, about 100 boys aged 8 -16, perform songs, march around and 'guard' the buildings.  I'm sorry to put 'guard' in quotes, but their intimidation factor is similar to that of the Vatican's Swiss Guards.  In the good ole days, they were paid with beer.  Best gig ever.

For all the Buckingham-esque uniforms and international tastes, Tivoli Gardens still struck us as decidedly Danish.  It's Denmark's biggest tourist attraction, but Danes themselves pile through the gates along with us foreigners.  We were actually visiting during a school holiday and generations of families who'd all grown up coming here walked around the place like it was second nature.  No maps are given at the door.  Wood was piled neatly in places, a windmill turned, vendors sold pork hot dogs and pulled pork sandwiches (Denmark is the highest consumer of pork per capita in the world).  Tivoli doesn't feel like a carnival, a sensory onslaught.  The manic, loud, cartoonish feeling so many amusement parks have isn't present here.  As Walt Disney remarked after visiting, there is a "happy and unbuttoned air of relaxed fun."  It's something that he is said to have tried to emulate in his own creation, Disneyland.

We didn't go on any rides, because we're embarrassingly impatient on most lines, but we did visit the in-house aquarium.  A fish feeding was going on, a shark feeding had just been missed, and the tanks were filled with exotic fish.  It's impossible to move quickly in an aquarium and it's amazing to see people stop, sit and gaze hypnotically at the fish.  All the powers a flickering movie or television screen has to hold your attention plus the fascination and awe inherent in the natural world make for a captivating experience.  Children hurdled downstairs in the midst of a sugar rush only to be lulled into awe by the aquarium.

"Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished" - Georg Cartsensen, 1843.  
One of the world's oldest roller coasters, the wooden Rutschebanen built in 1914, is at Tivoli, as is the awesome Star Flyer, a 260+ foot 'swing ride' that spins 24 people at a time around a watchtower high above the city.   The newest ride, Vertigo, was absolutely mesmerizing to us.  We stood, rapt, frightened, watching for a good ten minutes.  These four-seater planes are controlled by the riders, so you can hit 'turbo' and zoom so fast the people underneath you may squeal.  You can also flip and spin as you'd like.

I may have been even more impressed by this, though.  Bumper boats.  Why don't they have this in America? There was this feeling of giddiness in the air at Tivoli and the lack of a care in the world.  When Georg Carstensen decided he wanted to build the park, he appealed to King Christian VIII himself.  It's not every day someone wanted a chunk of land in a city center for what may be seen as frivolous purposes.  "When the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics,"  he apparently told the king to sway him.  Music to a politician's ears.

The Most Bosnian Town

If one place could claim to really encapsulate this country's identity, spirit and history, it's Jajce.  And to most people, Jajce is this view.  Looking at it reminded me a little of tourist t-shirts that show an artistic rendering of all the key sites in a country.  A composite that could place the Empire State Building side by side with the Statue of Liberty, whose making eyes at the guys of Mount Rushmore from behind the Golden Gate Bridge.  It's like a celebratory diorama.  Bosnia and Herzegovina = water! forests! castles! Medieval churches! Ottoman mosques! the prettiest hillside houses you've ever seen! They're all right there, piled above the town's very own set of waterfalls.  It would be almost twee if it weren't Bosnia.

As a taxi driver told us on our third day in the country, "We have a war every fifty years.  It's tradition!" While that's not precisely true, it's pretty close and Jajce has characteristically played a significant part in each.  Piled up behind and cascading down around the beloved waterfalls that have witnessed it all are reminders of all different chapters.  The 13th century fortress crowns the town, apropos of its status as capital and royal residence of the Bosnian kingdom beginning in the 1420s.  St. Luke's Tower, illuminated on the left side of the skyline, harkens back to this time.  It's the only in tact Medieval Tower on the Balkan Peninsula and was the location of the coronation of the last Bosnian king.  It has been idiosyncratically attached to the side of a mosque since the 1520s, when Ottomans destroyed the church but knew that the historic tower was worth saving.

Across from St. Luke's sits the entrance to the royal catacombs.  It's an underground church, complete with nave, altar and the now-emptied tombs of noblemen, built in the 15th century in just about the final years of the Bosnian kingdom.  The Ottoman Empire was swooping in and the Austro-Hungarian Empire grabbed a hold of Jajce and successfully protected it for around 60 years.  Then, in 1527, Jajce was the very last town in all of Bosnia to fall to the Ottomans.  Like everywhere else, this rule lasted about five centuries - at the end of which, Jajce became Austro-Hungarian once more. Unlike many other places, though, both sides cherished this town.  It never fell into neglect, was not ignored or forgotten.  It retained some of its former-capital luster and in the years before World War I it was treated to an  updated road system and modern infrastructure in the surrounding region. 

The next chapter of Bosnia and Herzegovina's life came, of course, with another war.  It was the big war - and the big turning point.  And, of course, Jajce was right there at the center of it.  In 1943, during World War II, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) met and drew up the documents that would outline the new state of Yugoslavia.  Tito's Yugoslavia.   A museum has been created where this took place, but we found out about it after closing hours.  Instead, we visited the small, but bright Ethnographic Museum.  A television set up amongst costumes and ancient pottery showed a video about wedding rituals.  Three vignettes played on loop, about Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox rituals, respectively.

At ANVOJ, Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed itself "neither Serbian nor Croatian nor Muslim, but rather Serbian Croatian and Muslim" and guaranteed brotherhood, freedom and equality for all three people.  In the next fifty years, Jajce's population reflected this sentiment, just as its steepled and minaretted skyline does.  Of course, the war challenged this very principle and Jajce was placed in its familiar wartime spotlight once more.   Jajce changed hands many times and was bombarded by every side.  The town's Serbian population fled, as did the Bosnian Muslims, neither group returned to the town in anything near their pre-war numbers. This young boy waved a Croatian flag as part of a long, honking wedding caravan.  Each vehicle has at least one flag bearer, some hung full sized versions over the back window.  This sort of nationalistic pride, which we've seen throughout the country (Banja Luka was covered in Serbian flags)  is worrisome to some in Jajce.  It's uncharacteristic of this town, a symptom of post-war divisions that aren't entirely mended yet.

"All war is stupid," that taxi driver had continued on.  "But ours was the stupidest."  The constant witness, Jajce's waterfalls, would undoubtedly agree.  At some point during the fighting, a hydroelectric power plant up the river was attacked, which caused some major flooding.  The falls were cut down by about a third of their size.  Once 30 meters tall, they are now around 21.  How sadly symbolic that the icon of this most Bosnian citizen, that had survived untouched through all that preceded, was truly hurt by the tragedy of its own people fighting each other.  Still, it gushes and it is beautiful.  It is visited by its fellow residents of Jajce every day.  The town has a unique energy to it.  After dark, the cafes overflow, though you won't necessarily hear bursts of laughter.  The constant rush of water in the background goes with it so well. Maybe that's chicken and egg, though.

Since the conflict, international organizations have been helping to fund the restoration and renovation of Jajce's historic monuments.  There are 24 protected national monuments in what's not a very large place.  Above, the Esma Sultana Mosque sits (newly) pretty.  This was once the most important mosque in the region but was destroyed - along with the town's Serbian Orthodox Church - during the war in the 90s.  It's exterior has been redone, but the inside is still a work in progress.  The first historic buildings to be worked on, of course, were those that make up that iconic waterfall panorama.  That view is an icon, the "Mostar's Old Bridge" of Northwest Bosnia.  To leave it in shambles would have felt too sad.

You don't get the sense that people see themselves as living in what could really become a museum town.  Excavations don't take place here, even though accidental findings date back to Aneolithic times.  The breakfast room of our hotel has a glass floor, beneath which are Roman ruins found during construction.  Luckily, they didn't just cement over them. But one gets the feeling someone else may have.  "The owner is Swiss," we were told by someone not associated with the hotel.  As if that explained the very logical, thoughtful decision to keep the findings exposed to the public. Even the Mithras Temple, the most ancient jewel in Jajce's sightseeing crown, was discovered by accident during construction.  It was found underground, hidden like all temples to this god are.

Now, it is in pieces, above ground, in a green tinted glass box by a condominium behind a Maxi supermarket.  It's obviously in the process of being fixed up, completely moved from its original home to help stop the effects of moisture damage.  A sign gives the estimated date of restoration completion as April of last year.  Like a lot of things, this is probably a combination of a lack of funds and interest.  Maybe Jajce just doesn't know what to do with their history anymore.  Looking back at all of their amazing town's past may feel impossible without also seeing the events that took place between then and now.  It is easier to look forward, to stroll by the waterfall and look out toward the future while the rest of us are taking little tours of their past.

Una, The One and Only

Like everything else in the Balkans, the Una river's name has a legend behind it - this one from Roman Times.  "The one and only," a foot soldier declared when spotting the river. He had never seen anything quite like it.  Even though there are 7 major rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and around 28 smaller ones, the Una is widely considered unique, a treasure, almost mythic. They say that it's a place of meditation and enlightenment.  We met it at the very end of the second rainstorm in two days. We'd just been thinking that the sudden, intense showers had made us feel our first real sense of "summer." Standing at the side of the Una, we had a realization, because I guess that's just what happens on this river. What had given us that familiar feeling of summer was all the green. The Northeast corner of Bosnia is a constant landscape of lush fields, and after weeks of Mediterranean climate, it felt familiar. It felt like summers throughout our lives.  And there it was, the Una River showing its powers of enlightenment right off the bat.

For most of its 132 mile length, the Una is surrounded by gorgeous, untouched nature.  It's as if people have known that if an eyesore was built by the Una's side, she'll punish them by reflecting their mistake back clearly and brightly.  The water is remarkably glassy, its reflections are a stunning study in symmetry above and below the horizon line.  It's also so so blue that when a duck glides over its surface, it's as if its tail is pulling down a zipper sewn into blue satin.  Down at the very bottom, the riverbed is smooth limestone.  Shelves of it can be seen raised up above the water in some spots, giving the river a unique and intriguing look.  It feels more like a mountain river than a valley river.  The dense forest rising up on each side, painted in the river's reflection, only adds to that feeling.  It is truly beguiling.

Fish can be seen darting around in such abundance that you feel like you could just throw a net or even a hand in and come up with a shiny, slinky fellow.  If it were only that easy.  This fishing house, set up on stilts, stands behind a roadside restaurant named "Stari Mlini," (Old Mill).  The restaurant's building, much newer, also stands in the river on stilts, between which mill wheels turn.  We'd gotten out of the car to look at it and were then distracted by wildflowers and these amazing blue dragonflies with velvety indigo wings.  Beyond them, we spotted the wooden relic out there alone.  The green river grasses have grown up at the same rate as the structure has broken down.  Even a river can sit still for a moment, this scene communicated to me.  My own little lesson from the Una, from which Bosniaks have been drawing inspiration and wisdom for centuries.

Young couples sit on the banks, staring in to see how good they look together.  Maybe they drop a pebble in to distort the reflection, so the rings of their two faces move in toward one another.  To see what their children would look like.  This young boy came to shore in his skiff, using a thick stick as a paddle.  His two friends stood on a bridge above him, poking fun at his makeshift oar.  This isn't to say that the locals' relationship with the Una is purely serene, contemplative, laid-back.  Rafting is exceedingly popular and big, heavylooking rafts were strung upside-down to the tops of vans that past by.  We saw one red tray carrying a sixpack of yellow helmets cruise by, but were a few days too late for the big spectacle that is the annual Una Regatta. 

Thousands of participants from here and abroad take to the water in rafts, canoes and kayaks, conquering the many waterfalls along the Una's course. It is a non-competitive "race" that takes 3-5 days. It's a celebration of the river, a bowing down to its powers and probably just a really great time. We went to Bihać to inquire about the event, and were welcomed by a sign that read "Bihać: A City in Love with the River."  There would be no point in specifying which one.  The river is the Una, here and throughout Northeast Bosnia and Herzegovina.  She loves this country as much as it loves her - which can only be assumed by the way she keeps bending toward it.  For most of the Una's length, the river runs right along the border of Croatia and Bosnia.  At three different points, though, it deviates from this clear path and curves in to the nation that adores it so much.  Bihać is situated at one of these points, a very pleasant, small city/large town with short, simple bridges arching over the river and picnic tables, parks and cafes edged up to the waterside.

Many say that the people of Bihać are the most ecologically minded Bosniaks in the country.  So, they don't just profess their love of the river, they really let it guide their decisions.  Which is wonderful.  Unlike other beautiful bodies of water we've visited recently, the underwater inhabitants of the Una are not currently at a risk of endangerment.  While fly-fishing is a popular recreational activity and fishing is touted as a unique tourist experience, the licensing system is responsible.  Unska pastrmka (Una river trout) are widely available on riverside menus, but larger species like carp and the prized grayling are left more to the fishermen themselves. Let them eat carp!  I'm happy with pastrmka. The trout of the Una happen to be uniformly plump, pink-fleshed and delicately flavored.  Trout is something that carries a huge dose of terroir and you can taste the purity of the Una.  No muddiness or earthiness, these trout taste like crystal blue water.

In Bosanska Krupa, we came across the young boy pictured earlier while walking across a wood-planked bridge, trying to get a nice photo of the three yellow, red-roofed houses set on stilts above mills.  Their placement is at the end of a mini peninsula, their surrounds are wholly water.  Across the way, a castle sits atop a hill.  Old guns, painted blue, point down directly at the quaint trio, an unfortunate coincidence.  On the other side of the hill is an amazing sight. A mosque, a Catholic church and an Orthodox church stand literally side by side, or at least across the street from one another.  Following the waters for a few days, visiting it at one spot or another, letting it speak to me like the locals told me to, I really felt that the wide expanse of the river right at this point had to do with that successful coexistence.   There's just something very magical about the Una. 

The Ideas Partnership

"It would be a shame for you not to meet the children!" Elizabeth Gowing had said enthusiastically via email. Twenty-four hours later, we were in the village of Janjevo, surrounded by its youngest citizens. Elizabeth and fellow workers and volunteers of The Ideas Partnership were setting up shop in a rental house in town, which wasn't exactly ready for their arrival. The children began to help carry bedding, dishes, personal affects out of the dining room to turn it the dining room into their summer classroom. The Ideas Partnership was there to get them prepared for and enrolled in school for the very first time this September.  Everything about it excited the kids - the attention, the newness, the promises of games and classes, the foreigners. A group of older residents, all in their 20s plus a confident 15 year old, were there to sign up volunteering. The energy was high, filled with enthusiasm, nerves, expectations, trepidation. Just like the first day of school. This is the world of non-profit organizations, NGOs and Kosovo.

Google search after google search kept leading us to Elizabeth Gowing - known simply as "Elizabeth" throughout Kosovo if our countless interactions with people are any indication. Her articles for Balkan Insight came up while we were looking for homestay options, transportation advice, even for the name of a good gourmet store in Pristina. An English woman who has lived in Kosovo for six years, she's already mastered the art of Kosovar hospitality, putting herself out there so completely as to offer her personal email address in a number of published pieces. Of course, we used it, asking a long string of questions in the hopes that maybe one or two would get answered. What we wound up with was an immediate, lengthy response, a wealth of information and a glimpse of Kosovo that we never, ever would have gotten otherwise. Elizabeth is not just a published memoirist and poet, a journalist and advocate. She's a beekeeper - and upon meeting her, I couldn't refrain from making a lame joke about her being as busy as one.

She is one of three founding members of The Ideas Partnership, an NGO that focuses on helping Kosovans protect their cultural heritage and environment and educate their youngest citizens. There are somewhere around 4,000 non-government organizations (NGOs) registered in Kosovo, but only around 10% are actually active. Still, there are loads of internationals here to work and volunteer and to visit with one of these organizations felt like a truly Kosovar experience. Since The Ideas Partnership is particularly active, there were a lot of options for our involvement - but so little time. Maybe the Sunday Roma language class or the Tuesday evening team-building session? Elizabeth knew that the perfect use of our limited time was to go to Janjevo with them on their maiden voyage. She knew that the children would make the biggest impression on us and that our presence would make the biggest impression on them.

The education program is most likely dearest to her heart, and most demanding of her time. It began in Fushë Kosovë, just 5 kilometers outside of Pristina but a world away. Most big city residents have never visited the town, which shows a level of poverty hard to imagine over foamy machiatos. She said that when photos of the area and the children were shown to some acquaintances in Pristina, they had responded in disbelief, "That's not Kosovo."  The organization's mission, sparked by one little girl's story, was to enroll the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children of the town into the local school. This involved working with the kids, their parents and the school system that had not made it all that easy for them. 'Step-up' classes prepared them to be students for the first time, lots of passionate diplomacy worked to change the system to allow entry and extra-help after-school sessions keep the children successfully enrolled. It was - and is - a success, swarming with local and international volunteers. Now, they are copying the model in a brand new town - Janjevo. And we were there on the very first day - on 'ground-breaking,' so to speak. Step-up classes begin this Monday.

Janjevo is historically Croation, so Serbo-Croat speaking volunteer Katarina (from Belgrade) has been laying the groundwork for weeks. She's visited almost every family, trying to get a truthful number of non-school-going children and gauge the reasons. She has met with the town's different leaders - the figureheads of the Albanian, Roma, Muslim and Orthodox communities. In a joint meeting between the Roma leader and the three women we accompanied to Janjevo, he spoke German with Elizabeth, French with Aurelie (an executive director originally from France) and Serbo-Croatian with Katarina. I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall. Something like the conversation at the urinal of the United Nations. Of course, most importantly, Katarina had gotten to know the children themselves. When our van pulled up, they swarmed so closely and banged on the sides so loudly that I felt like a Beatle (or a Bieber or whoever the kids are listening to these days). Katarina! Katarina! they shouted. The Ideas Partnership had officially arrived.

The children were fascinated by us, mostly because we were hanging around idly as the others talked logistics and made introductions.  The boy in the red collar, Cuka, was a charismatic ringleader who used every English word in his arsenal on us.  Photo! Photo! We clicked and showed him. Deleta! Deleta! if his eyes were closed.  Facebook! he said and then wrote down his email for us (and his password, which I assured him I didn't need).  At the end of it all, after saying I had nice eyes and hair, he patted Merlin on the back and said he had a good nose and good teeth.  With a firm handshake, he said the nicest thing of all: You are a good man.  So are you, dude.  So are you.

The children aren't the only ones with potential in Janjevo, the town itself is just waiting to be appreciated.  It used to be a wealthy mining town, but is now mostly abandoned.  They say that only one third of the houses are occupied.  The historic house of Stefan Gjecovi Kryeziu, ethnologist, historian, national hero, has been renovated and is supposedly going to be turned into a museum at some point.  Other houses are simply falling into disrepair as each day passes.  They retain signs of their former luster and the surrounding mountains and lack of modern architecture make the place feel even more magical.  Elizabeth and partners talked about the draw this setting could have for volunteers, how wonderful it would be if they could offer teachers a place to stay in a fixed up traditional house.  The potential for tourism is high and the leaders of the town mentioned their desire for it to Elizabeth, who reported that our presence (as two Americans with cameras) put big smiles on their faces.

While tourism could help the town's economy, we were far from the most important foreigners arriving in Janjevo that day.  Elizabeth, Katarina and Aurelie are doing such important, impressive work.  Economic stimulation is great, but intellectual and creative stimulation of the town's forgotten young people is even better.  We left wishing we had more time to give, more help to offer.  But we are really thankful to have at least been welcomed to tag along for the day - to see The Ideas Partnership at work and all of these wonderful children at play.

A Soggy Holiday

Three days of rain.  We traveled to Sokobanja from Nis, a choice that was applauded by the couple who ran our hostel.  The wife sucked on her cigarette with a contemplative pull and exhaled the name with pleasure.  Sokobanja.  "It is nice, Sokobanja, very nice," the husband nodded as he rolled his own smoke.  "I will drive you to the bus.  It is raining."  A large, dust-covered framed portrait of Tito was removed from the trunk of their car so that our backpacks could fit.  Little did we know - though the clouds were desperately trying to tell us - that our time in the resort town would mostly be spent in this hotel.

Rain leaked into the lobby and ricocheted off the already full plastic tubs meant to catch it.  A tv buzzed overhead.  The place felt immediately familiar.  These are the sort of hotels that I like to dub a CommuNest.  As functional and inviting as a mall parking garage, they are sprawling, grid-like structures.  With their enormous spaces, high ceiling, dim lighting and little-to-no soft notes, they remind me of high school after school hours.  This institutional feel is only emphasized by the enormous, uniformed staff and the many pieces of rubber-stamped paperwork they produce.  Even our breakfast card was certified.   It harkened back to our time in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova.  Tito's portrait all of a sudden felt like a premonition.  Then, things took an unexpected turn.  We were not alone.

At least 400 children occupied the hotel - some sort of rained out Summer Camp, I assume.  Everything looked even more enormous and faded as the backdrop to its tiny, energetic clientele.  It was like a Roald Dahl novel about a hotel just for children.   At breakfast, we were offered a choice between hot milk and hot chocolate.  The cleaning lady unlocked our door each morning at 8:30am.  Above the age of 12, it was like we were invisible.  By the second day, my clothes were beginning to smell less like smoke and more like hot dog.  The hair salon spent their days braiding fine, blonde hair into cornrows.  These "vacation hairstyles," that are usually meant to signify a trip to an island somewhere, only made the lack of natural light in the hotel more noticeable.

There were 540 beds, two pools, therapeutic and cosmetic spas, gym facilities, a bowling alley, a nightly magician show, a bar area that strongly resembled those smoker's cubes in airports, a 200+ person conference room, etc etc etc.   The pools are the main draw, filled with thermal water.  The springs are what have brought people to Sokobanja for centuries.  It began with the Romans, who bathed in the warm waters here and breathed in the fresh, mountain air.  By 1837 these things were officially seen as restorative, therapeutic and Prince Miloš Obrenović turned the site into a destination. The Turkish slant on it was, of course, to build hamams, which the Serbians transformed afterwards into wellness centers. 

The hotel swimming pool and complex surrounding it are just the newest incarnation of 'spa town.'  This also means carnival rides and pizza places, a pedestrian boulevard that was lively even as the tiny dug-out canoe on display in the public park filled up with rain water.  It's always amazing to see carnival games when they're not in use.  With no crowds and music and lights, you notice that there are half naked women painted on the side of the "Shut Gun" trailer.  You notice just how rickety that ferris wheel looks.  But you also can't help imagine it turning on, lighting up and spinning itself dry.

The bumper cars got a little use while we were in town, on account of their having a roof.  Whenever the rain stopped, everyone hurried outside.  We scrambled up to the ruins of Sokograd, breathing in fresh air and getting our muscles moving.  It was glorious.  The rain began again shortly after and we trailed mud back into the hotel.  The poor kids had been cooped up all day and now had to exhaust all of their pent up energy at a pajama dance party.  A sea of tiny people, in tiny clothing, dancing around to Shakira - I thought of something I'd read earlier that day.  “Sokobanja, Soko Grad, come here old and leave young."  Maybe they've all just been here too long...?  A Roald Dahl book indeed.

A veritable cityscape of luggage filled reception on our last morning in Sokobanja.  Children ran around the roller-bag skyscrapers.  The elevator door opened and behind it was not the usual bather in white robe, but a cartful of suitcases about to topple.  As we sat with coffee, more bags came from every direction.  It was like that final moment of Tetris, when the blocks just start descending too quickly. Game Over.  Finally, it dawned on us that this wasn't just the baggage of the kids leaving, there were new ones arriving!  Like the thermal pool water the day before, a drain and refill was occurring.

 

The new children were destined to be less cooped up and less stir crazy.  The weather was changing.  The girls smacked around a volleyball and the boys pushed each other on skateboards as they waited for their turn to check-in.  They'd undoubtedly take full advantage of everything this pretty resort town has to offer.  They'll kick soccer balls over tennis nets and miss foul shots on the basketball court.  They'll drink limunada at the cafe tables and buy their moms porcelain teddy bears that say "I <3 Sokobanja"  They'll stow a few pieces of bread and cheese away in a napkin during breakfast and eat it for lunch at a picnic table set up along the hiking trail to Sokograd. At least, I would if I were them.

Bauernmarkt

Well, the heat wave has ended. We awoke to a downpour and 50 degree temperature, plus extreme winds that were not kind to our poor, rattled tent. The once-a-month farmer's market (bauernmarkt) in Vaduz was scheduled for today and we were a little worried that it may be canceled. Luckily, not only was it in full swing when we arrived, the rain only upped the sense of community.
People huddled together and sloshed around in galoshes as a quartet played cheery, classical music in the corner. A breakfast buffet was set up along the back wall of the windowed tent. Through it, a anachronistic backdrop of snow-capped mountains made us feel momentarily delusional. Of course, it makes sense that rain down here means snow up there. It only made us happier to cling to the bauernmarkt's warmth and ignore the world outside for a moment.
We felt like part of the community, recognizing a face here and there. There's the woman from the Hofkellerei, standing behind the Hofkellerei table - there's that incredibly tall man from the Demmel Kaffee. He roasted coffee beans on a fire, handed us a few to munch on and complimented us on our newly gained tans. We bought some coffee and a piece of banana loaf from his table, knowing that the coffee roastery/cafe was one of the companies represented at the market that was definitely Liechtensteinische (and not Swiss).
Our second purchase was Swiss, but we weren't too hard on ourselves about it. This no-nonsense kid took time out from his croissant and comic book to sell us some semi-hard goat cheese. Cheese and sausage were the most plentiful goods for sale, but produce, oils and vinegars, wine, baked goods and a wooden brush vendor rounded out the offerings.
Of course, there was a man grilling sausages. This is a veal bratwurst and was pronounced "the best sausage of the trip" by Merlin. It was served in a Malbuner bag, which is a processed ham company based out of Liechtenstein, named after a town in Liechtenstein, but which uses meat from Switzerland (in case you were wondering).
Some people sat with a bottle of wine, others with full breakfast buffet plates; some grazed the free samples, other purchased bowls of asian soup which filled the air with a sweet soy and sesame oil scent. It was a lively, dry gathering under the bauernmarkt tent and we were glad to be part of it.

'Bads' Never Felt So Good

On a sweltering, mid-August day (hotter than normal, according to everyone we asked), we visited Freibad Muhleholz, the outdoor swimming pool in Vaduz. It’s an impressive public swimming space, with an Olympic sized pool, a diving pool, a tall, twisting water slide and a third pool with some sort of strange, large, rubber ball at its center. Primped teenage girls served themselves up on cement tanning platforms and their male counterparts stopped by between dives. Most of the jumpers were younger and less skilled. Some didn’t wind up jumping at all. There's a grassy lawn and beach volleyball court, but even the most intent sun-worshippers sought shade the day we were there. We're in the middle of a heat wave.
Liechtenstein is the only double-landlocked country in Europe and only one of two double-landlocked countries in the world. This means that it doesn’t border any oceans and none of the countries that border it touch any ocean either. So, basically, there’s no such thing as hitting the coast. Understandably, Liechtenstein is swimming in swimming pools or “bads.” “Freibads” are outdoor ones and “hallenbads” are indoor ones. This freibad is at our campsite and is almost consistently occupied. It’s hard to resist when your shelter (i.e. tent) sits in the sun all day. Plus, you can’t beat these views.
In the town of Schellenberg, we moved indoors – both to a bed and a ‘hallenbad.’ You can hear splashing from almost every backyard in the small, residential village. Aboveground pools, some inflatable, some more permanent, can be spotted behind most fences. Not that I’m a Peeping Tom or anything. The best part about the Hotel Krone’s indoor pool was its openness. An entire wall was windowed, which made the room brighter and prettier. Swimming noodles, water weights and boogie boards were piled up on one end, next to an exercise bicycle.
The other indoor pool we’ve utilized is in Eschen and is a lot different than we expected. The speedo-wearing lap swimmers and excited kids were predictable, but the wooden ceilings, paper lanterns and windowed walls made it feel a lot less enclosed, unnatural and gymnasium-like. The atmosphere (and less oppressive chlorine levels) made us feel a lot less guilty for being inside on a summer day. Everyone likes a good swim and double-land-locked Liechtenstein knows that sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you’ve gotta do.