Balkanic ramblings

I don't want to attempt to encapsulate a whole region or experience with one solitary image. To do so would be overly simplistic and undoubtedly trite, especially when we consider a diverse conglomeration of small countries and nations like those in the Balkans. All of this to say that my remarks should not be taken as whole offensive truths (or subjective truths or lies, as they very well might be) and that I don't intend to be a jerk conveniently categorizing and the unknown into compatible niches or stereotypes. I don't wish to glibly narrate maxims of how this or that people are or are not; I want to offer impressions and an internal view of how these bits of the world look to this well-wandered Wyomingite.

Incidentally, I hate caveats like the one I have just provided--they seem to be better the discourse of politicians not willing to say what they really intend--but I want my readership to save their shock and outrage, knowing that I am not some traveler haphazardly trying to capture the "spirit" of a people in a sound bite or picture. Coming from a big, well-known nation, I am well-aware of the potential exceptions and inaccurate interpretations of a landscape. These limitations stated, I continue...

For the last two weeks or so, I've been exploring the Western Balkans and spending time in places both on and off the beaten track of tourists: Belgrade-Prizren-Skopje-Tirana-Ulcinj-Budva-Kotor-Herceg Novi-Podgorica-Dubrovnik-Trieste-Portoroz-Zagreb (a copy of my route is on Google maps). Fascinating places. Fantastic and rejuvenating journey.


Many know that fate has brought me to Eastern Europe and the Balkans (mainly Romania) for an extended amount of time over the last decade. I'm fairly well-prepared for travel in these parts, and I know what to expect for the most part. One common aspect of my experiences relates to one of the most crudest human daily experiences, that of toilet paper. A paper trail, so to speak, strewn throughout my travels has been rough, gray-brown, scratchy toilet paper. This variant being nothing like the white double-sheeted decadent rolls I grew up with (some of you are rolling your eyes at this point, I know, and probably preparing to make some wisecrack or astute observation about privileged Americans in the world stage or the economic disparities of the two places compared or the unimportance of the material used to wipe your backside... but hang on just a second longer!). In Romania last year, I was quite surprised to find the same toilet paper not in its gray-brown paper I'd come to expect but rather the same rough paper disguised in a lovely pink color.


Back to the travels at hand... My arrival in Belgrade was non-eventful and quite pleasant (more later on that adventure). It's a great city. However, before I got out of the airport, I visited the toilet and was met with this rose-colored variant of paper. I admit that it made me smile. The pink paper unrolled across the path of my travels; almost everywhere I stayed or visited had the same pink stuff sitting in the bathroom. As I paused to consider this simple paper roll, I had to ask why they bother to add the color in the Balkans to the same rough and cheap paper found all over these parts of Europe? Is it somehow an outward symbol of the color and vivacity of the people in the Balkans? Whatever the answer may be, I can say the pink toilet paper, as befuddling as it may be, still does the same duty as the softer or whiter or browner varieties. This colorful, virtually unnoticeable daily item I take as a simple and bane symbol of my trip and my impressions of the places and people I met there -- anything but boring and anything but absent of color and life!