When you have your 21st Birthday in Europe

When the average American girl turns 21, the day is spent getting ready for the big night and the night is spent drinking shots that seem to be different because they are technically legal this time. But I guess it is no surprise that turning 21 in Europe is a little different. Americans try desperately to recreate the experience they think they should have had if they were still in the states only to find that no body really cares, leaving the day subconsciously disappointing.  See the problem is that you simply can’t compare the two and you certainly can’t force one situation upon another, which is why I didn’t even try.  Of course I went to a pub the night of my birthday and took Becherovka shots at midnight (which is a Czech specialty). But the real celebration happened the next day on Easter, April 24^th.  I thought to myself, what do Europeans do best… FOOD!  So my roommates and I spent the entire day cooking from scratch an Easter feast with Czech dumplings, two roast chickens, Czech potato pancakes, fruit salad, vegetable salad, two lamb cakes (a Czech Easter tradition), and sangria.  Technically it was a potluck but the only people who ended up bringing anything were my Eastern European friends who brought even more cake and other desert pastries. Basically we had more food than anyone of us knew what to do with. So we ate and ate and ate… a true Czech birthday.

But the best part is still to come. Following my birthday feast was a ten-day epic trip with my sister traveling across Eastern Europe. We went to Budapest, Slovenia, and Croatia spending about three days in each place and having the time of our lives.  Note: read at your own risk. It’s long and more for my records than for yours. But if you do decide to read, take a break, get some coffee and snuggle up. 

The first day was in Prague where I made Bryn eat some Czech street sausage, fried cheese, and goulash and of course ordered the infamous Pilsner and Becherovka.  I took her to the Lennon wall, my favorite peeing fountain, toured the lesser known but far more beautiful Vysehrad Castle, and showed her around the heart and soul of my Czech experience: Zizkov.  The day regretfully ended with me packing up my life and putting into a suitcase anything I didn’t want to travel with at the end of my program, which was far more stressful than I had anticipated. So while crossing my fingers we sat on the suitcase, pushed and pulled until it miraculously zipped up, and headed out the door to begin the most unplanned and unorganized trip I have ever attempted. The only requirement was to be in Zagreb by May 4^th and to have as much fun as possible. PERFECT.

BUDAPEST:

In a true Pyke fashion the first thing we did was take a free walking tour to get a mini history lesson before exploring for ourselves. We then pack our day full, with eating lunch at the central market, bathing in the Turkish baths, and touring the Labyrinth caves under the Hungarian Palace (which was actually legitimately spooky considering we were alone with nothing but an oil lamp making our way through a maze of underground passage ways miles beneath the bustling city of Budapest). After our little adventure underground we make our way back to the hostel with aching feet and exhausted bodies. But it’s Budapest right… the city of crazy nightlife? So with a little self-convincing we head out to this alternative bar in the famous Jewish quarter making friends with these really funny Polish guys. Without even realizing it we stay out until 3:30am and make our way home once more completely bewildered to how we even managed to stay out that late. The next day we walk the park, tour the house of terror (the actual site of both the Nazi headquarters and the communist’s secret police and torture center).  Doubting that my brain could take any more history we ambitiously head over to tour the Opera house ending with a mini concert. Straight away we rush to the parliament to tour that as well, but apparently we were just a tad bit too late (which don’t tell Bryn, but I was actually completely ok with) Three tours in one day is a bit much, even for a Pyke. We then find a cheap dinner restaurant in the tour guidebook, which doesn't end up being cheap at all and head back to the hostel to get ready for our second night out.  This time we meet this Jewish Hungarian student and his friends who take us to the secret spots around the Jewish quarter and we spend the entire night talking politics and learning about the issues with the Hungarian government. Like most post-communist democracies the name of the game is corruption and the major debates revolve around EU involvement. 

SLOVENIA: The next morning we take the early morning train to Zagreb and drop off my huge bag into a locker, simply hoping it will still be there when we come back a week later to pick it up. We spend the day touring Zagreb and stumble across the most amazing coffee shop street I have seen since being here. Literally the entire street is full of coffee shops that sell nothing but coffee and set out chairs and tables that go on as far as the eye can see, full of people with nothing to do in the middle of a Wednesday day but to chat with their friends and people watch.  Reluctantly we head back to make our night train to Ljubljana and arrive just in time to check into our disgustingly dirty but wonderfully cheap hostel and head out yet again to find another pub.  As we are walking Bryn hears noise up this random ally way, so naturally we follow the sounds and stumble across the local hangout spot. 

There we meet this French girl named Melanie and her fiancé and his friends who are celebrating her birthday. We hang out with them all night and almost commit to hopping into their car to head to Venice with them the next day.  The only problem was by the end of the night we knew there was no way any one of them would actually be in the physical state to do anything but sleep off an incredibly large hangover.

So we wake up early and make our way to Lake Bled (a local treasure and virtually undiscovered hub of paradise). This beautiful lake is surrounded by green mountains, a Castle on top of a hill, and this quaint little town with nothing really but cottages and pizzerias. The first hostel we walk into happens to be the cheapest and has total of a two guests: Sarah and Sophie (two sisters from England who we end up becoming really good friends with).  We tour the Castle because of the incredible view it offers, get free wine from the cute old monk working the winery, and then make our way down to walk the perimeter of the lake.  However just as we are about to hit the half way mark of the walk it starts to pour rain (which is crazy considering the beautiful blue skies we enjoyed earlier in the day). So Bryn, Sarah, Sophie and I run into a pub to take shelter and have a blast exchanging stories and talking about Sophie’s job working with the criminally insane and the horror stories attached to such a profession. When it stops raining we finish the walk and eat some seriously amazing pizza at the one restaurant near our hostel.

The next morning we wake up at 5am to make it back to Ljubljana in time for the excursion we signed up for. Normally I am a skeptic with excursions, but this was a different story… one word. Unbelievable.

The excursion takes us first to one of the largest underground cave networks, second only to South America I believe. Here is my one sentence attempt to describe was it was like because any more than that would almost begin to devalue the experience. So here I go. It is what I imagine C.S Lewis’s ‘man in the silver chair’ would have lived in with mist, cold darkness, vast and impressive halls of limestone and rock as if you could almost taste the enchantment but still convince yourself that the sun is just a small price to pay in exchange for such a place. Seeing the light at the end of tunnel was more disappointing than joyous for it meant that the spell would be broken and reality would have to kick back in. But thankfully God is a good God because all his creation is equally as captivating; and as you walk out the cave you enter a valley of green and trees surrounded by sheer cliffs and a waterfall.  After spending three months traveling from city to city it was a much-needed change of scenery.  So we finish our hike and get back in the car just in time to miss the rain and head to the city of Piran.  With a quick stop off to visit the stud farm of the famous Venetian white horses, we continue on to the coast of Slovenia where a peninsula was cut off by stone walls in the middle ages and a city of shoulder width streets and red roofs grew upward, capping at 5,000 inhabitants in a space that could easily be the size of a PV mansion.

We have a seafood dinner on the coast in honor of Bob Pyke with Croatia on our left and Italy on our right under the bathing sun.  We then walk around some more, get gelato, and head back into the car as I complain that three hours was definitely not long enough.  Our last stop was like stepping into a fairy tale as we head past miles and miles of green luscious hills, country cottages, and rivers to finally round the corner and see a massive castle tucked away into the face of a mountain.

Apparently the castle was home to Erasmus who killed a Hapsburg prince and fled to the mountains, building his fortress in a cave where not only could no one find him, but any one who did had no way of getting in.  So Erasmus became a local Robin Hood who stole from the rich and kept to himself. Finally the Emperors army found him and decided to starve him out, not realizing that the cave had hidden passageways that lead to a valley on the opposite side of the mountain where he smuggled in food and taunted the bewildered men by throwing fresh food at them.  Today the castle remains the sight of mid evil festivals, jousting, and costume parties for local Slovenians and Italian tourists.  O what it would have been like to go to one of those festivals- to sit and watch a joust and say “hello…it’s called lance” ahh I would have died from happiness.

Well that basically concludes our Slovenian experience. It is a country of mesmerizing beauty- although Bryn accuses me of being over dramatic, which is probably accurate; I still feel that this is one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.  But I may be proven wrong since I still haven’t been to Salzburg or Switzerland, so we’ll see.  Anyway, the last little bit of the Slovenian trip is of little importance except to say that when trying to make the only train to Pula in the Istrian peninsula of Croatia the next morning, we missed it by literally 30 seconds. After absorbing the shock of seeing the train slowly roll off without us on it, we recoup and decide what to do next. After convincing ourselves that the day is going to be a day of massive travel no matter what way we look at it, we decide to cut our losses and take the 8am train to Split and complete our epic travels with the beautiful coast of Dubrovnik.

CROATIA:

Wow here we go. This was a whirlwind. We make it to Split by mid afternoon and tour around the city, visiting the Dalmatian Palace, watching the sun set over the bay, going to dinner in this cute little diner in old town, and getting free drinks from these Ukrainian men who insisted on escorting us all the way back to the buses. We make the 1:30am bus to Dubrovnik and arrive at around 5 in the morning. So the one weird thing about Croatia is there are no hostels but rather sobes (aka rooms in random people’s houses). As soon as we step off the bus random men and women swarm us asking if we want to come with them to their house. Ahhh creepy. So we get this one woman to do half the price of anyone else and get in her car and go to this run down little Croatian house about 20 minutes from old town. But when we finally make it to old town all is forgiven because the city is truly the pearl of the Adriatic. The city was actually a separate republic for most of its history, having the resources to pay off any invaders and has the idea of ‘libertas’ (liberty) built into its very existence.  It was actually one of the first countries to accept the American rebellion as valid – little fun fact. So what is so special about the city? Good question. I spent the entire time trying to figure out what it was about it that took your breath away. Basically I came to the conclusion that the fact that every building has stone walls and red roofs and looks as if it is falling apart with little renovation despite retiling the roofs damaged by the Balkan wars, was reason enough. But that wasn’t all.  The massive stonewalls surrounding the city are completely in tact making you feel small, trapped, and intimidated while walking around the inside. But then you look up and see the beautiful blue skies, the green mountains starting to incline at the foot of the far wall, and you see the blue/green waters splashing up against the edge of the city and you’re a goner… completely in love. We did all the ‘tourist’ things within the first half of the first day (well we did start at 5 am.. but still). So we spent the rest of the time just soaking up the scenery, walking around, sitting on the rocks with waves splashing beneath, and of course eating good food and gelato. We even got to go wine tasting with a special Croatian wine and olive oil (if you want the specific names your gonna have to ask Bryn.) This section isn’t going to be long because not a lot happened in terms of tourism.  But it was great to just sit and really let the incredible views sink in and enjoy relaxing on the coast of Croatia. Later that night we got in this interesting conversation with the Croatian bar tender at the Irish pub in old town who gave us his first hand account of the Balkan wars and his view of the Serbian conflict. An incredible opportunity to learn from someone who lived through it…

The last day was simply a travel day (literally…) We went from Dubrovnik to Split, barely made our connection from Split to Zagreb (at one point we thought we were gonna have to rent a car to make it to Zagreb, which would have been an experience in of itself) but made the connection and arrived in Zagreb giving Bryn at 30 min window to get my bag and get her off to the airport. I then took a train to Budapest and then back to Prague arriving at 4 in the morning Thursday May 6^th… holy crap that was a long travel time. never ever ever again will I do that. Hahha

Well that is about it. Sorry this took so long but any less and I would have regretted not writing it down. My final thoughts are basically that I am the luckiest girl in the world! To see what we saw, to travel around with my big sis (who is probably the best travel partner because of her truly superhuman patience), to meet the people we met, and to experience a culture completely separate from our own, I am without words for how thankful I am. I thank the lord we remained safe and got to do all we wanted without any huge upsets.  I also want to thank Triage for financing the trip with their flight vouchers and Bryn’s United credit card that got her over here. What a blessing!

It was truly the most epic 21^st birthday and I will challenge any person who claims they had a better one .. haha jk. (But really, mine was the best.)

LOVE YOU BRYN! Thanks for traveling with me and making this birthday one I will never forget.