Day 1:
This marks the inaugural blog post of our trip through Eastern Europe. I’ve had internal and external debates about what qualifies as “Eastern,” and the best answer I could come up with is that a European country is Eastern if you’re not looking forward to its food.
Marisa and I will be out of the country for exactly two weeks, and will be visiting Croatia, Albania and Montenegro. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about why we chose this specific trip. The PC answer is that we really wanted to hike the Accursed Mountains in Albania and explore the beautiful cities of Dubrovnik and Kotor. The honest response is because Marisa has traveled extensively and if we were going to be around each other nonstop for two weeks, I wanted to minimize her elitism. I would like to be a tourist and make mistakes and not go somewhere she’s already been. That eliminated most countries.
Anyway, no matter the distance of the journey, departure day always brings two of my favorite things. The first is the chance to obliterate the airline I’m flying on Twitter. Given that we were flying Condor, which is what you would get if you bred Lufthansa with Spirit, I pregamed the flight by loading a few really good tweets into the chamber. And considering that I’m writing this first entry from the middle of a 2-3-2 formation, best believe Germany is about to get that thunder.
The second reason I look forward to the first day of any trip is because I get to eat at PDX, America’s best food court. Today, I had my sights set on the Pok Pok foodcart, an extension of the insanely popular, Anthony Bourdain-endorsed Thai restaurant in Southeast Portland. This food cart only serves their famous wings, which is great because that was the only thing I wanted to eat before a 10-hour flight. To be completely candid, Pok Pok airport wings accounted for about 5% of my decision to take this trip.
Guess who we discovered no longer had a food cart at PDX?
Instead, we pity ate burgers at Rogue Brewery and drank a beer to get to the perfect level of bloated where you’re uncomfortable for the first few hours of the flight. At the gate, a bunch of multilingual German kids conversed in fluent German and English, a classic intimidation tactic by the European youth. I confided in Marisa that traveling always brings out my American insecurities.
We land in Dubrovnik, Croatia, at 8:45 p.m. tonight after a four-hour layover in Frankfurt.
Full travel agenda is below. Excited to bring you actual updates that don’t involve the airport, Twitter or German kids.
-Zach
9/2: Depart PDX at 6:45 p.m.
9/3: Arrive in Dubrovnik at 8:45 p.m.
9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik
9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Shkodër, Albania. Spend the night in Shkodër.
9/8: Take bus and ferry to Valbona, Albania.
9/8 - 9/10: Valbona.
9/10: Hike to Theth, Albania, in the Accursed Mountains. Spend the night at a guest house.
9/11: Minibus back to Shkodër; bus to Kotor, Montenegro.
9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro
9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.
9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX.