Happy Love Day! So many reasons to celebrate!  💖💖💖

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restaurant lot is o’tajine & ziggy’s karaoke by @catsaar

Freshman year:

Ahhh move in day! What a time to be frightened! I remember seeing all these kids my age running around with their newly bought luggage and furniture, running into Lumberjack Landing with their parents that all look like mine. The kids (I mean college kids, freshman age), were all scared, the parents were either more excited than the kids or grumpy about the drive. Because SFA was in the country, deep country. Most of the kids there were either from Houston or dallas, so it takes about 3-4 hours to get the Nacogdoches, depending on where you were. Man… driving up to lumberjack landing… all the cars, all the purple banners, all the white people with their freshly bought stuff. Did I already say that? Let me reiterate one more time: compared to my stuff, THESE KIDS HAD BRAND NEW STUFF. I’m not saying all of my stuff (which wasn’t a lot) wasn’t new, but I definitely wasn’t new. I know that’s confusing, but it makes sense to me. Maybe one day ill go back and edit this and publish it in my memoirs. As if, as if I will live a life that would require memoirs. C’mon ryan, self confidence much?

Anyways, I moved in to my dorm Top floor (4th), my roommate’s name was Ryan McEntee, a white dude who was in the military… You know, I forgot the name of it, but the people who were… ROTC, that’s what he was in. ROTC. But yeah, he was kinda a douche. I remember because the first night there he had a girl over in his bed. Super awkward stuff. And it seemed pretty hypocritical to his Christian agenda to be fooling around with this other ROTC chick, but regardless, I for the most part got a long with him. His first impression of me was me playing League of Legends as he walked in. He was already moved in by the time my parents dropped me off. And they seriously just dropped me off, helped move my stuff in the dorm, and left. No dinner or anything. I guess they wanted to hit the rode pretty quickly.

So I was settled in. I didn’t have any intention of leaving my dorm the first day, too hot, too many people, too many attractive girls. I was still in my super awkward phase (im just in my little bit awkward phase now) and so I didn’t have any self awareness or confidence. The dorm did however host an event that I decided would be smart for me to go to. It was a gathering at the pool by the rec for some sort of party with cotton candy and family safe stuff going on. I went with my little party from my dorm, I didn’t know any of them, and I didn’t really care to all that much, non of them seemed cool. While I was there I hung out with little pockets of people. Nobody really cared enough to ask me my name, but nevertheless I did find one kid who seemed a little bit interesting. His name was emil, and he is still a facebook contact to this day! I remember seeing him because he was wearing his cutoffs and his hair was all over his forhead, I thought he was an emo punk combo [somebody that I would hang out with in highschool, somebody I thought I could immediately be comfortable with]. Here’s how the intereaction went:

R: Hey what’s up man

E: Hey.

R: these tihngs are pretty lame right? [I wasn’t hitting on him I swear]

E: Yeah for sure.

R: Yeah I can’t really talk to these people, ya know?

E: yeah it seems pretty cliquish. Im… I’m not really into these types of parties, I mostly just like to watch movies.

[I get excited aat this point. I mean could you imagine? Finding  someone I could share my love of movies with on my FIRST DAY?]

R: Dude you like movies too? That’s awesome! My name is Ryan

E: Emil.

We sit on a hill and start talking about movies and shit. We soon find out that we are both geology majors, and my excitement reaches new levels. I mean, I think I made a best friend on my first day of college! I decide to make my move.

R: Okay fellow nerds human [didn’t really say that, for clarification, future person], how about I ask you the ultimate question a film nerd can ask… What’s your favorite movie?

E: Uhm…. I would have to say it would have to be the thin blue line by Terrence Malik.

What kind of dense, sophisticated person did I run into. Could it be? Could this really be happening?

R: Oh man, dude that’s awesome! Yeah, that movie is amazing. My favorite movie I apocalypse now.

E: Yeah that movie is cool!

R: dude… let’s leave and go ditch this paty and watch apocalypse now.

E: uhm… okay.

So we leave and we walk back to lumberjack landing. We talk a little bit, I’ obviously more excited than him. But then we hit the elevator to head up to the fourth floor.

R: This will be cool. I bet my roommate isn’t in there, He’s probably out doing rotc shit.

E: Heh, yeah. Hey you know what? I live on the third floor, I think I’m just going  to go to my room.

He hits the button for three.

R: OH. Yeah… that’s cool. Okay, yeah sweet.

E: Yeah dude, it was fun.

R: Yeah…. I guess I’ll see you around?

E: Yeah.

He leaves, and I go to my room wondering what the fuck I did wrong.

Looking back at it I may have approached the situation a little bit gayly. I mean, Emil was already anti social to begin with, I wouldn’t put it past him to believe that I was trying to bang him, but my intentions were pure of cinema. I was totally just ttying to nerd the fuck out with him. Maybe he was just not ready for that kind of commitment. Maybe he regrets it to this day.

Yeah that’s right, I was a geology major before I was a film major. I wish I started out as a film major, that would have been amazing. I wish I was that woke. Then again, I probably would have never met DION, so there is that. I would have still met NICK, and MATT, they were my sweetmates, and I probably would have still met mINa, because Matt knew Mina, and Nick stole Mina from Matt. So there was that. I always liked mina, one of the most beaautfil girls I have ever seen. She always said she found me attractive… what wasn’t I woke? Why wasn’t I sexually active aand trying to bang? I guess I never really had the confidence. Or maybe I just didn’t know who I was at the time… I meen, I was still dealing with heavy self image issues. I remember walking to class with my backwards hat on and no glasses, because I thought they made me look nerdy. But this was before I wore contacts, so I couldn’t see. Yeah that’s right, I was walking to class, not being able to see. It impacted my life a lot. I wish I had gotten contacts sooner as well. I wish I wasn’t told I just had to wear glasses. I mean one time while I was growing up  I told my mom I didn’t like the way I looked with glasses on. She said oh well and told my dad later on. I didn’t know she told my dad until I decided to try and live my life without glasses for then on. So I would try to read without glasses and I would get headaches. So I went downstairs one time and asked my dad if you get headaches from reading without glasses on, then he said yes, and your mother told me that you don’t like the way you look with glasses on. I stumpled and stuttered… Then he said I just have to get over that and there is nothing you can do about it. At the time I didn’t know I could just get contacts, so my heart was pretty broken. I seriously felt defeated because I didn’t think I would look good for my entire life. Contacts were seriously not an option at that age.

I remember one time growing up I was going through a period of fuckups and I couldn’t really see why my life was cursed so much. This was in middle school and I can’t quite remember what I did. I think this was after the time I told a kid that his mom sucked my dick. I remember like it was yesterday.

Sitting in Mr. George’s [English?] class, we were in groups, and I was in a group with the new kid I did nOT like, he was middle eastern and didn’t speak English very well, and I thought for some inexplaable reason that he was rude and …. I don’t know I just iddn’t like the kid okay? I think he just had one of those faces that you could just pick on easily. Don’t get me wrong, I totally was in the wrong just as much as him in this insistence, but still see where I was coming from. I mean here I was, a tall lanky band kid who had nobody to fit in with and was getting picked on almost everyday, mostly by other black people. And where was this kid, ill just call in Pedro, who was middle eastern and short and easy to pick on. Well we were in pairs and we got into this arhument that resorted in name calling. We had a somewhat audience, but I just had to win this name calling argument. I resroted to saying the worst thing I could thnk of: your mom sucked my dick.

He promptly got up and went over to the teacher and told on me. I was so pissed off, I was written up too. We both were actually because when he took us outside and talked about it, I was able to say that he started and… and he fucking agreed. Anyways, later that day at home I was terrified, I mena I knew I would get that phone call from the teacher. Well it happened, we had the caller id speak outloud and it was from the school. I was terrified. She picked it up and started having a semi normal conversation about me with mr. George, I even started to think ntohng would happen. Then she went to her bedroom and started discussing it. Turns out I had detention. I got introuble to say the least.

Later that night I was in my room when my dad called me downstairs and into their room. I think what happened was I told my mom that the other kid started it and I was innocent. I think she believed me, until my dad started questioning me. I was lying out of my ass when he was  questioning me. I remember he was sitting up in his bed next to mom, I was starring at the doorway. He kept on asking questions and I started getting to the point to where I would say I don’t know. Then he said if I sadi I don’t know one more time he would throw this tv remote at my head. At that point I panicked and told them everything. I told him... “his mom sucked my dick”. My dad got piseed. He told me I would be lucky if he didn’t bring a gun t oschool the next day to shoot me. This is why people die in schools. I was mortified. I think he punched me in the chest too, but I was used to that the words stayed with mee longer.

The next days of afterschool detention wernt that bad. I hung out in mr. georges room with pedro. We kinda… became friends after that. It was… werid.

Eastern Europe - Autumn 2015

Croatia:

Here we go again – off to Eastern Europe to visit our Croatian Crew and to set out for new horizons. Lucky, we left Germany when we did, because as it turned out at the border Jarrah had fewer days in the Schengen left than we had calculated. While the Slovenian side of the border was perfectly fine with that we somehow found ourselves confronted with a cranky young wench wanting to bite our heads off at the Croatian side. Obviously, no one had told her that Croatia is OUTSIDE of the Schengen borders and that therefore it made perfect sense for Jarrah to be travelling this way. Later, we found out that this lady has quite the border Nazi reputation throughout Eastern Europe, spanning from Croatia all the way to Bulgaria and Romania!

Our timing to get to Buzet couldn't have been more perfect as its famous Subotina Festival was on when we arrived. This 3-day festival had a lot to offer, including a free open-air concert, as well as two separate street fairs in the new and old town respectively. We learnt that the festival marks the start of the white-truffle season, but at least the main event in the old town looked more like a medieval fair.

Lots of people dressed up in traditional costumes performing traditional crafts such as forging iron or old-school carpentry. The event gave us the opportunity to finally try some of the local truffle produce, which strangely enough did not give us any clarity AT ALL as to whether we fall within the truffle 'lovers' or  'haters' camp. The taste is just too ambiguous, strangely appealing and revolting at the same time. Weird...

In any case, thanks to our good friend Dean who hooked us up with tickets to partake in this event!

On this trip we were stepping it up in the grown-up world, staying with beautiful Enna, Gogo and their son Malik in their apartment in Pazin. Unsurprisingly, this bunch turned out to be exceptional hosts – good company, good climbing, good vibes, what more could we ask for? They also introduced us to a Slovenian crusher Klemen Becan and his wife Anja (which was also when we learned that Istrians and Slovenians somehow manage to magically communicate with each other using different languages- say whaaaaaat?!):

http://www.epictv.com/media/podcast/klemen-bean-runs-out-of-hard-routes-in-slovenia-bolts-new-ones-in-croatia-%7C-the-slovenians-ep-1/600408

We tried to climb on the wall mentioned at the end of this clip, but were shut down on its lowest graded climb. Oh well, back to sending all the nemeses that we'd left on the last trip instead. I also found a new perfect project called Asylantin (23), which I literally sent at the very last minute before driving further east. Happy days!

When we didn't climb, we either pulled the classic – let's party like we're 20 again – all-nighter at our favourite youth club, BUM, in Buzet, went to the beautiful seaside in Rovinj, or explored the area. During one of these trips our friend Luka took us hiking up the Ćićarija mountain range, adding another unforgettable Istrian adventure to our list.

Oh, how we love these Istrian folks; their kindness, generosity and unbelievable hospitality! Not to mention the world class climbing destination that lies right at their doorstep! This is why we're happily missing out on other planned Eastern European destinations on every trip and had we not made prior plans with Chris in Bulgaria, we'd probably still be in Croatia! Thank you Enna, Gogo, Malik, Antonio, Melani, Dean, Noan, Luka, Marin, Ivana, Klemen, Anja and everyone else I forgot to mention for showing us your beautiful part of the world – you guys are AMAZING!

Bulgaria:

After once again saying goodbye to our Istrian friends, we raced off to Bulgaria to meet our Australian friend Chris in Sofia. On our way, we caught up with our previous couchsurfing host Dario in Osijek. You can probably see a repeating theme here – i.e. us visiting all of the great people from the first trip once again! It is thus not surprising that we decided to add Vladimir in Sofia to that list, who was happy to have all three of us surf his couch (or rather hand over his bed in classic hospitable Eastern European fashion).

Jarrah and I did our best to pick up Chris from Sofia airport on time, but there were some complications. First, our tyre burst in the middle of the highway somewhere between Belgrade and Nis. Lucky we had brought a spare, so that was an easy fix. However, what we were not able to do was to turn back time – yes, as it turns out there is a one hour time difference between Serbia and Bulgaria. Damn! Of course, this was also the first time during our trip where there was a big line-up at the border. Poor Chris learnt a lesson that day, that is 'don't trust vagabond travellers with time'. Luckily, Vladimir was there for the rescue and gave Chris a hand in navigating his way around Sofia and after a small city search we actually found Chris right in front of Vlads apartment. After that we pulled an all-nighter involving way too much Rakia for those of us with a competitive edge driving them 'to drink like the locals'.

In retrospect, it would have been advisable to listen to Vlad who did mention that some Bulgarians have a habit of 'choosing beer as a hangover cure and for sobering up'! You spew you learn...

Thanks Vlad for having us and helping us out with new tyres, logistics, etc. - you are a living legend!

Vratsa: Being one day behind schedule, we finally made it to Vratsa, where we spent a few days climbing before the rain chased us out.

We were in good company with a bunch of other climbers being out and about, which made for good evening get-togethers. Amongst them was an older English guy who seemed genuinely committed to the dirt-bag climbing lifestyle, which is good to see for those of us that just don't want grow up... yet! :)

Prohodna Cave: Following the same path as on our last Bulgaria trip we escaped the rain in Vratsa and made our way to Prohodna Cave, which offers a dry, outdoor climbing despite heavy rain. That is, unless you're planning to climb directy into 'the eyes of god' or 'Oknata' in the middle of the cave's roof. Chris and Jarrah sent and on-sighted a few amazingly hard and beautiful climbing routes here, and I, well I tried really hard to do the same continuously falling off the wall with a hint of terror. Hopefully, the mental training will pay off eventually, fingers crossed!

Of course, Ivan the crazy cow Shepard was also out and about, greeting us with his cows' bells every day.

The three of us managed to build a pretty good rain shelter for our tent at the foot of the cave, so we stayed cozy and dry at night. Chris had moved into our tent at this point, which left me sleeping next to two smelly, snoring boys - thank god there is wine! To be fair we probably all stunk after trying really hard every day in an ever wettening cave, with the rain being too damn cold to shower in it. Showers are overrated anyway...

We had good company during our time here. First, there was a group of cavers exploring the area; then Jarrah made some new Romanian friends while Chris and I had passed out in the tent from exhaustion (I swear it was not a wine-exhaustion), and finally we ran into Yavor and Katharina from Sofia like on our last trip. Those two were indeed a lucky encounter for Chris in particular, because without them he he might have had to walk back to Sofia. As it happens when you go somewhere rural in Eastern Europe, the infrastructure can be a bit of a navigational challenge. In our scenario the problem was that the train station that was supposed to get Chris back into Sofia just wasn't there. Yes, there was a sign for it; and yes it lead us down an albeit very questionable path; and there even were train tracks at the end of it; but unfortunately for Chris that was it. So instead of getting Chris to jump the train Wild Western style he enjoyed a nice and cozy ride with Yavor and Katharina to Sofia. Thanks for another good trip Chris, always a pleasure to catch up!

Romania:

Bucharest: Upon invitation of our new Romanian friends Andrei, Catalina and Ania we decided to have a stop-over in Bucharest. As so many times before on our journey we let the people guide our path to the next destination and – you guessed it - good people make for good experiences. Andrei was super generous and left his brand new apartment to us as a place to crash. From this base we explored the city and its people with our new friends. We even went on a guided city tour to quench our thirst for historical knowledge of which you find so much of in Europe. We might not remember it all, but a view fun facts always remain. So we learned that engineers managed to roll entire churches to saftey to preserve Bucharest's architectural heritage for generations to come when Nicolae Ceaușescu redesigned the city in the 80s. We also learned that Bucharest's Palace of Parliament is the 2nd biggest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon and that there were many inappropriate jokes going on after 9/11 when all of a sudden Bucharest had the biggest one intact. Lastly, we learned that Michael Jackson may have been the 'king of pop' but a 'peasant of geography', which he proved in 1992 when he  came on stage in Bucharest screaming to his fans “how are you doing, Budapest?” Apparently, he is not alone, so just to reiterate:

Of course, we also did a little bit of climbing, however, back in Bulgaria where we found a very questionable ARMED saint sculpture embellishing the entrance of a country church and crossed an even more questionable bridge under construction across the Danube. I guess the Bulgarian's are honest about organised religion and total safety is overrated when crossing a 'tiny' river, we can all swim right?!

We really enjoyed our time in and around Budapest,... eh I mean Bucharest. It's a lovely city with lovely people, beautiful old buildings, nice surrounds and very chaotic traffic (although our friends insist that there is method to this madness).  

Thank you Andrei, Andrei's mum (for all the good homemade Ajvar), Catalina and Ania you made our stay AWESOME!

Brasov (Kronstadt): Next stop in our Romanian adveture – Brasov! Here we stayed with Florin, another last-minute couch-surfing saviour. Jarrah was determined to find some bears in the forests surrounding Brasov, but instead we found beautiful mountainside, covered in lush, green grass and trees with stunning views. I'm sure there were bears around somewhere, but due to our constant habit of 'forgetting the bear spray' I'm kind of glad we did not encounter them. We also had a look at Bran castle (more commonly known as Dracula's castle), which is nestled in a beautiful little country town, however, decided to give the inside of this major tourist attraction a miss. We figured if Vlad Țepeș aka 'Vlad the Impaler' (1448-1476) who was Bram Stoker's historical inspiration for his Dracula novel could give it a miss, so could we.

Instead we had yet another free city tour where we learned about Brasov's German colonist origins as Kronstadt and more about good old Vlad the Impaler. Apparently, Vlad was held hostage in the Ottoman Empire when he was a kid, just to return the favour by massacring tons of Turks with their own punishment of choice (i.e. longitudinal impalement – yes it is what you think it is) later in life. We were told that he erected posts of impaled humans along the path of invading soldiers to break their spirit and weakening their strength. Dracula seems like an angel in comparison.  Another fun fact about Brasov is that to this day you will find the letters 'ALIN' imprinted into the forest surrounding the city - a tribute to Joseph Stalin after whom the city was renamed in the early 1950s, when Brasov became Orașul Stalin.

Through the Carpathians on the Transfăgărășan road : When we left Brasov, I was a little confused by Jarrah's constant peaking into the forest instead of keeping his eyes on the road. I was just about to yell at him to regain his focus, when it dawned on me that Jarrah had never seen a beautiful autumn forest and this one was particularly beautiful. A good time to swap drivers, but not for long... cause there it was - the crazy Transfăgărășan road, also known as Ceaușescu's Folly. This picturesque mountain road with it's many twists and turns is every racer's dream – so you guessed it we swapped spots again! I was glad Jarrah's 'race car' was a VW Polo and not a Porsche 911, although he probably thinks otherwise. No wonder the English TV-show Top Gear used this road in one of its episodes. A stunning road with stunning views indeed and definitely a must-do when travelling in Transylvania. Also, if you do it towards the end of the season a nice 'ice bath' awaits you at the top which I definitely had to take advantage of (to cool down from JT's driving mostly). While we did not see any bears here either, we were rewarded with the most beautiful fox I've ever seen for our persistence in spotting wildlife along the way. What a killer of a day, which ended with us camping somewhere on a field just outside Sibiu in classic gypsy fashion.

Arad: The last stop on our trip was Arad, which we mostly picked due to its proximity to the Hungarian border to shorten our trip back home to Germany. Here Jarrah had his first church experience when it turned out that our couch-surfing hosts were practising Seventh-day Adventist. I wish I could describe to you the look on Jarrah's face when our CS Benji greeted us by letting us know that 'he would go to church now and that we were welcome to join'. It was hilarious. Jarrah quickly realised that he would not understand a word anyway and so experienced his first church service at almost 30. Not sure what to think of this church, but the people were very nice and accommodating, plus there was free food!

Benji, his brother Pratricius and his wife Eunice, as well as the rest of the family turned out to be amazing hosts. We got a couple of insider city tours, one of which included a special visit to Arad's Administrative Palace, where we literally got to sit in the mayor's chair. Benji also took us to a local hot spring to soothe our battered bodies from weeks of travelling and climbing which was just what we needed. Upon learning that we were vegans, Benji's mum decided to stay behind that day to cook us up a vegan feast, of course this happened without our knowledge – still it was good!!! Benji had many talents and his piano playing just blew us away. According to him, the trick to success in many areas of his life was to have had very strict parents. Interesting...

Before we left, Benji showed us his little (or rather big) work shed where he restores old bikes and as a perfect end to a perfect stay we cruised around the city at night on our stylish bikes. Thank you family Lazar for our amazing stay with you guys!