The Unrequested Random Clearing House

We’ve completed 3 years of driving around Europe and so begins Year 4. But first I have to do a recap of the last half of 2024.

We started in Athens and ended in Paris. It was an ambitious year and we pulled it off. This was 2024!

And Without Further Delay – The Unrequested Random Clearing House

Not every paragraph I write fits cleanly into a topic thesis, some exist as disjointed, broken time-line offerings that were orphaned in my attempts at brevity. Let’s acknowledge that not everything can be an anecdote. Here are the underdeveloped notions that refused to play nice. Congratulations folks, it’s another unrequested episode of Bobby’s Random European Clearing House!

Catch Up

The last you read; we had completed our circumnavigation of the country of Turkey with an additional sojourn into Georgia. It was then time to head north to meet my brother in Vienna. 

It was all fun and games until we met some real French people.

Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia

We were moving fast and trying to hide from the heat. Northern Europe is unforgivingly cold in the winter and Southern Europe is almost equally uncomfortable in the summer. The crowds, scorching wet heat, and sucking mosquitos keep us indoors or rolling our eyes while outdoors. I’m so soft and old now that I only want the shoulder seasons. How’s that for a picky bastard? We needed to seek altitude while we blasted through these countries. We didn’t find it. We ran the portable aircon we bought in Morocco nonstop. Every sweaty handshake moved us north until we entered Slovenia.

Bulgaria. The lake makes it look cooler than it was

Sofia Bulgaria. I grew the stache so they would respect me if I was kidnapped in Georgia

Sofia Bulgaria and the obvious Eastern influences

Somewhere in Croatia

Slovenia

The parking spot we chose was free and came with a plug. Ruse is a cute little town and a good staging spot to clean and prep for the absorption of another human into our wee habitrail.

Maribor Slovenia - The oldest grape vine in the world. 450 years old!!!!

Vienna

The pickup was smooth and the Friedman Bros were reunited with much fanfare. The whirlwind was about to begin.

Czechia

Brno was great, Prague was the best!

Prague at Sunset

Prague after sunset

Germany

The stereotypes are true – only let German’s lift your hood. Nowhere in the sunshine countries of Europe - can they be trusted. I can tell you stories of incompetence that would blow your mind. I came to Radeberg for some usual maintenance items and stayed for the charm of Bautzen. 

Poland

I researched the usage of the letter “W” in the English language. It is used 1.3% of the time. I then researched how often the “W” is used in the Polish language: 4.1%. As I suspected. Then I went for the grand prize…The letter “Z”. In English its usage is .27% (that’s a decimal point in front of the 2). In Polish it’s a whopping 5.33%! That’s on par with the vowels A, E & I. That’s almost 20 times as much. Come on, Poland… less, Z's, less W's. They’re at the end of the alphabet for a reason. You don't need that many Z's and W's. And why put a Z next to an S? Isn't that a little redundant? Put your pitchforks down, I’m just trying to help.

Slovakia

Orava, Strba, Kosice

A castle, a lake, and a charming town. I didn’t learn anything about the culture. I don’t have any quirky insulting thoughts about their habits. More research is required. We shall return.

The castle at Orava

Lake Strba. The next day they dragged the lake looking for that lost vowel. 

Kosice

Hungary

Eger & Budapest. 

Goodbye Skinny. We had a great 3 weeks together. I can’t attest to either of these cities as I was focused on my brother’s departure. I always miss him so much.

Back to Slovakia

Still didn’t learn anything – more research needed. 

Back to Poland

The highlight was the Wolf’s Lair. Hitler lived here for 800 nights like a bat in his dank bunker during the end of the war. The campsite is actually inside the property so you have free reign all night (one more reason traveling by moho rocks). We got loaded with a German couple and walked back over to the spot where Claus Von Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Hitler. It’s difficult to kill pure evil. He failed and was executed later that evening. Cue up the Tom Cruise movie “Valkyrie”

The foundation of the building in which the meeting took place. See the photo below for a recreation

The red squares denote where the generals stood and absorbed the blast. The briefcase was the bomb

Then, once inebriated, we went back after dark and poked around in the ruble while accompanied by German accents. Spooky.

There are some beautiful spots in Poland. This is Nowe Guty

                                                     

This is Poznan Poland

                                                                                    

Back to Germany

In Brazil, it's a contest to see how many best friends you can make in a day. In Germany it's a challenge to try and get one German to acknowledge your existence. We did better than average and had a good time but you do need to try a bit.

Made it to Berlin. I had no idea how many barber shops and kebab stands could squeeze into a single street. Good thing we were in Turkey earlier in the year and I still remembered how to say hello and thank you.

First impressions of Berlin: Big grimy city, rare to hear German being spoken, every 20 steps there's a plaque denoting the evil that was committed in that exact spot by their ancestors.

A whole family murdered at Auschwitz. These plaques are in front of the home where they used to live. 

This was an entrance gate from an old defunct train station. The plaque denoted that children were sent to their deaths from here

To the left of that man in motion is a sign that explains Hitler's bunker was beneath this car park and apartments. It was here he finally did the right thing and blew his brains out. 

Berlin... Man. I'm so conflicted. So much evil and then there are all the cold war communist years, yet.... It's really a cool city

It went from “The stuff of nightmares” to “Fairytale Germany” as we dropped south and embarked on Deutschland’s Romantic Road. 

Meissen Germany

Ladenburg Germany

                                                        

                                                             

Rothenburg Germany

Trier Germany. This is the Porta Nigra built in 170 AD by the Romans

                                                                      





Our buddy Dominik (we met him 3 years ago in Croatia) hopped in his whooshbanger and drove to Bamberg to meet us for a couple nights of revelry. The town is charming, the company was great and we walked on clouds

Luxembourg Was Lux

We’d never been to this country before. Q: Do you know why it’s so expensive? A: Because it’s so worth it!

Luxembourg City is beyond belief

   

                                                                                                                              

This is Vianden Luxembourg

Vianden & the lovely Alejandra

Belgium

The word “waiter” has European roots. They make you wait and wait and wait. Oh, he's gonna get to you…yeah - when he's good and ready. This isn’t just Belgium. It’s the whole continent, but the poor service is worth the price of NOT tipping. I’m a fan. 

In this town hops grow wild on the side of the road

We went to only 2 cities and for 2 different celebrations: 1) Beer 2) Those that gave their all. One of our favorite brands of Belch beers (totally legal to refer to the people of this country as Belch, as is the reference to Norwegians as Weegies) is Leffe. Dinant is the village where it was birthed in the 1200’s. Look – this is a pleasure cruise not some highbrow academic sojourn into the literary heights of the Renaissance. We kept it ridiculous by venturing to a village only for the purpose of visiting the mothership of a beer brand. Yeah – I can be vacuous. 

Dinant Belgium

Our second stop was a lot more solemn. Ypres seems to be a city dedicated to the sacrifices of the First World War. I was absolutely moved to watch the gathering and the words spoken at sunset on the street. I assumed we had arrived on a special day. No – this occurs every day. I stopped one of the men in the suits after that march and inquired what this was all about. He was from Scotland and had flown in just to pay his respects with his mates. He answered all my questions very politely and when I stalled out, he calmly asked, “if you don’t have any more questions, I’d like to catch up with my mates for a cold one.” I’m assuming it was Leffe he'd be drinking. 

This sincere procession occurs each night. I was floored

France

We passed through just to swap propane tanks and to take the ferry to Old Blighty. We somehow thought it would be a good idea to go to Britain for Oct & Nov…. again. 

But that’s the next read. 

All for now,

Black Top Bobby

Kava, String Bands, and the Suicide Jumps

We anchored in a bay that was unpronounceable and immediately upon going ashore, met John. He taught us how to avoid Chief Alan and his anchor tax of $50. He also forced his wife to give us veggies and her handbag (Suzi would tell you it was voluntary). Then they came out to Barraveigh for some snacks and cold drinks. We put the hospitality ball back into their court as they marched us up the hill to a nakamal (meeting house) in the midst of a kava plantation. The party was the celebration of a 1 year olds birthday. In the hierarchy of authentic experiences you hope to experience as a traveler, this one was the equivalent of winning the brass ring.

The women had prepared an earthen oven and began excavating it shortly after we arrived. They removed a layer of palm fronds, then hot rocks, more palm fronds, more rocks, and then after the final layer of fronds, we finally beheld the taro and pig parts. The men were busy making the kava. They had conical tools made of coral that they've chiseled with stone (truly a stone age culture) to resemble teeth of a gear so as to make the rasping of the kava more efficient. One hand twists the tool while the other forces the meat of the root unto it, as it's reduced to a pulpy mass. It falls into a wooden bowl and they add water and mix with a high powered electrical blender (Not really, they mix by hand you numpty. This is the part they used to do by mastication. That means chewing and spitting. Thank god they don't do that anymore). They then strain it repeatedly thru the husk of a palm tree. It's tantamount to nature's cheese cloth. It worked perfectly. I could probably filter my diesel through that bark. As the male guest, I was offered the first coconut shell full of the greenish brown elixir. The crushing stupor was quick to follow. John drank his next and within 10 minutes we made eye contact from across the dirt floor. He gave me the eyebrow-rising-head-shake that universally means "Dude, I am wasted." He's a native and he was grilling his melon, can you imagine what it did to me? I can only say that the effect reminded me of college. It was as if I'd ripped way too many bongs and knew I'd be skipping every class.

Even without the frost that was encroaching on my consciousness, I thought the string band was one of the most interesting things I've witnessed in Vanuatu. The drink amplified the bizarre performance. It consists of 1 ukulele (it starts every song), 4 guitars, and one bass. Now let me explain what I am calling a bass: It's a wood box about 2 feet high and one foot square. Out of the center of the top comes a rope. That rope is tied to one end of a stick. The other end of the stick is wedged into a brace that is built into a corner of the box. The player puts 1 leg on the top of the box, pushes the rope away from him by using the stick and plucks the rope. He adjusts the tension on the rope as he plucks and thus alters the pitch of the bass. Ingenious! Then there's the singing. It's a cross between what a cat would sound like if you stood on its tail and the "Soggy Bottom Boys".

Vanuatu has turned out to be the primitive village experience we were hoping for. Their standard of living is 100 years behind Fiji. It's easy to tell that some of these pikinnis haven't seen many whites. No one can fake that expression of astonishment mixed with fear. The homes they live in look like they came directly from the set of Gilligan's Island. They're nothing more than woven bamboo shacks with palm frond roofs, but the job they've done of weaving designs into the wall paneling is fantastically ornate. Ditto for the bags everyone, men included, carry over their shoulders. They're lovely people. They have nothing and are eager to give. On some of the islands, that's how you get to be chief; throwing lavish parties to redistribute your wealth. It's called "taking grades" and is similar to the NW American Indians and their potlatches (Another US Indian similarity is in the pidjin English that the natives here use, and how it sounds to my ear like the syntax I used to hear in Flagstaff: "me wannem big heap smashed potatoes"). I'd spend more time with these people except for 2 reasons - 1.) Let's face it; they are the island equivalent of uneducated hillbillies. 2.) They stink worse than the Czechs. (However, Prague still holds the world record for "most waiters with b.o.")

The conversations are short because . . . well, their worlds are microscopic. I thought I ran out of things to say to the beach dudes back in SD, but it happens faster here. Every conversation follows roughly this outline: Agriculture, clan hierarchy, what to trade, and then we go back to agriculture. Sometimes you get a little superstition thrown in, but that's a complete dead-end. Further questions on that topic all wrap up quickly with, "It's our kastom."

I was told by Samsam that they only need money for kerosene, clothes, and soap. They might need it for those 3 things but empirical evidence proves they are only spending it on kerosene. The clothes never change so even if they wash with soap (not likely) they're still going to reek. And god do they reek. 3rd World Reek - new band name.

Then there are the runny noses on the kids and the communal lice picking from their afros. I think what we're beginning to see, are the first stages of real poverty. Now I feel like an asshole.

I'd like to tell you about the Land Diving at Pentecost Island. This is where the wire haired freaks jump off towers of scaffolding with vines tied to their ankles. Insane. However, this dispatch is long enough. It'll be on the next one.

Your Ugly American,

Bobby

P.S. / Suzi has posted a lot of new pics at http://www.suziroberts.co.uk/