The three musketeers

Welcome back friends!

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Today, I’m going to talk about the unique culture of Romania. As Jorick said in our previous blog, the first impression we got from Romania was very good.

The name “Romania” was first used when the three regions were united in 1859. Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania had a great reflection of the nations language and culture. These three ‘musketeers’ are fairly uniform. But the Hungarian community in Transylvania is an exception. They consider themselves as Hungarian people. Also the gypsies, who are called ‘The Roma’, aren’t culturally related.

The flag of Romania reflects also the three regions. It consists of blue, yellow and red vertical stripes. Yorick already told us that Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania. It is located in the center of the southern region of Walachia, one of the three regions. Between the two world wars, Bucharest was also a cultural center called "the Paris of the East". We were curious to know more about their unique culture. Online, we found some information about certain cultural signs including the National Art Museum, the national theater and the country's largest university. We decided to visit these attractions once we arrived at Bucharest but unfortunately; we hadn’t enough time due to our interest in the Romanian literature and humanity.

During the communism, the Romanian government forced artists to join unions, which supported them but censored their work. Nowadays, there is more creative freedom. We didn’t see much of that creative freedom because the financial support has decreased.

EminescuMihai is considered the greatest and most influential Romanian poet, particularly for the poem Luceafărul. But the national literature also consisted of ballads and folklore. The most popular folktale is that of Dracula. The vampire from Transylvania! It gives me the creeps when I think of that story.

Close to our guesthouse, there were a couple of musicians playing on the street. Before planning this trip, we wanted to learn the hora, the national dance. It was so funny! We danced on the street with those musicians. An experience to never forget!

I hope this you enjoyed reading my blog! See you next time.

Isabella

http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Romania.html#b / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania#Culture

Romania, nothing but Roma…

Hey guys!

After having visited Bulgaria, we’re in Romania now. “When you hear Romania, you think of Roma.” This seems to be a prejudice for me, because Romania is much more than only Roma! Let’s have a look to some general facts.

Romania is located in Southeastern Central Europe. The country has about 22 million inhabitants, most of them are Romanian (90 %), but there also live a lot of Hungarian (about 8 %). Most of them are Christian Orthodox. The Romanian capital is Bucharest, which is also the largest city of the country. Romania itself is a republic led by president Traian Basescu.

Like I already said, Romania is located in the southeastern part of Central Europe. The country borders to Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and the Black Sea. The capital, Bucharest, is situated in the southeast. Bucharest’s landscape is characterized by some hills, which isn’t surprising us, because over 60 percent of the country consists of mountains. The most familiar mountain range are the Carpathian Mountains, also known as the “Transylvanian Alps”.

Many people think Romanians are gypsies with a wicked background. But in my opinion, we may not generalize this rumor.  You can’t judge a community without having visited the country… Me and my friends are visiting Romania and our first impression is quite positive. Unlike those mean rumors, we can assure you that Romanians are one of the friendliest and most open people on earth.  They are warm, hospitable and have a nice sense of humor.

We haven’t spent a lot of time in Romania yet, but our first impressions were quite well! Moreover, we look forward to explore the local culture and habits in the next few days. So let’s hope we’ll have a nice time to experience.

Don’t hesitate to leave some comments or questions behind.

Jorick Verschraegen
Romania week 7 (general)

Source: http://www.romaniatourism.com/about-romania.html

From Thracian to Bulgarian:

Many people think Bulgaria is a subordinated country, but it certainly isn’t! On the contrary. Bulgaria is a country that’s growing all the time. The economic situation too is developing time by time. The Bulgarian economy is a topic already mentioned by Lisa. For the few days we’re in this beautiful country, we like to taste some Bulgarian cultural life.

In the same way as Turkey, Bulgaria is a crossroad between Europe and Asia. Furthermore “the country has been populated since antiquity,” which means that they have a quite impressive history! But what can be understood as a Eurasian population?  That’s a question I like to find out… Bulgaria has been inhabited  by many different nations. From Romans to Slavs. They all belong to the Bulgarian cultural heritage. Moreover, the country has been influenced by Greek, Persian and Celtic habits. In fact we can say that the Bulgarian population exists of a mixture of different kinds of cultures and cultural influences.

Now, we already know that Bulgaria is a very cultural country, so I can’t write this blog post without mentioning the local traditions. Believe me, there are a lot of them! I take off with a tradition that we know as a proverb. “To sit on hot coals” is a saying we all heard of. But in some Bulgarian villages, certainly in the Balkan Mountains it’s a living reality. Yet almost… In fact, they don’t sit on these hot coals, but they dance on it! These people are called “Fire Dancers”. Another striking tradition are the Mummer games. This is an ancient habit held by masked and costumed men on New Year’s Eve. Their ritual dances have the intention to chase the bad spirits away so they can start the new year with a lot of positive energy.

One of the most important components of Bulgarian culture is folk music. This music is made by a wide range of traditional instruments giving the music an own and unique sound! A famous Bulgarian folksong is the “horo”. The instruments used for this kind of music are: fiddle, mandolin, the” kaval” (flute), the “gaida” (bagpipe) and the “dvoyanka” (double pipe).

I hope you learned something more about the Bulgarian habits and all what has to do about it.
I won’t hesitate to answer some questions or comments, so feel comfortable to leave something behind.

Jorick Verschraegen
Bulgaria week 6 (culture)

Source: http://bulgariatravel.org/en/dynamic_page/78

Countryside in a capital?

Welcome back my friends

As Lisa already said we are in Bulgaria after learning something more about the economy of Bulgaria, let’s have a look at their geography.

After we came from Turkey we went a bit up north to visit Bulgaria. It is located in the southeast corner of Europe and as Lisa already said it is one of the Balkan countries situated south of the Donau. The surface of Bulgaria is 2.7 times the surface of the Netherlands. The countries that border Bulgaria are Romania, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Greece and of course with Turkey by which we entered Bulgaria. It also has a coast, because the black sea is also a border of Bulgaria. If you go to from north to south you will have to travel 330 km and if you go from east to west, the distance is 520 km.

We visited some places that we can really recommend to all of you. First we went to Sophia, this is Bulgaria’s biggest city and it is one of Europe’s most compact and walkable cities but it is still the least known one by foreign travelers. We liked that because there weren’t a lot of tourists there. We could also still feel the old east-meets-west feeling because of the oniondomed churches, Ottoman mosques and Red Army monuments topped with air punching soldiers, but now you have a lot of shopping malls, five-star hotels and a lot of bars and clubs.

We walked a lot in Sophia but sometimes it was too crowded so we looked for a place that was more peaceful. We definitely found that place. It is called Yuzhen Park and it is a bit south in Sophia. There is a vast green sprawl, a lot of trees and pathways. It is known as the most open countryside you can have in a big city.

Now, I’m really tired. This day was pretty exhausting. Now it is time to get some sleep, goodnight friends!

Matthias Denys

Week 6 Bulgaria (geography)

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria/sofia/sights/outdoors/yuzhen-park

Hidden treasures of Europe

Dear friends,

Yes it’s true! During the next couple of weeks we’re travelling through some Balkan countries, and as you’ve already heard our first stop is Bulgaria. Last year I also visited some Balkan countries (Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro) and there I got the opportunity to get to know these countries a little bit better. In my point of view, Eastern Europe is really beautiful but unfortunately  a lot of people forget they even exist. People still see these countries as dangerous, especially countries as Serbia, Macedonia or Bosnia. The truth is people are really missing out on some of the most hidden treasures of Europe…

Unlike a lot of the Balkan countries, tourism is already important because it’s one of the safest countries of Western Europe. Especially Sofia, the capital of this country is often visited by tourists from all over the world. Even though an average wage consists only out of 400 Euros,  Bulgaria experiences a rapid economic growth. Their currency is not the euro, because they still have their own currency and it’s called the lev. The lev is also the most stable currency of all currencies in the Balkan countries. And the strongest sectors are energy, mining, metallurgy, machine building, agriculture and tourism.

You might think this is a rather boring blog post about economics and stuff, but I really think it’s important to know that Europe not only exists out of countries as France, Spain and England. Eastern Europe has a lot to offer and I’m sure a lot of you would love to go there. But maybe it’s also a good thing these countries aren’t that touristic, because now you still see some untouched nature and not only buildings and swimming pools…

Feel free to leave some comments below!

Lisa Van Gassen
Bulgaria week 6


Source: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria

A surprise party in Turkey

Dear followers,

As Jorick already told you, we’re in Turkey at the moment. So you probably know that we visited Trabzon, Antalya and Istanbul. At first I wasn’t really looking forward to visit this country because when people talk about Turkey it’s always about partying, drinking and sunbathing. But when we prepared our trip I got to know this country a little bit better and I have to say that I was very curious when we headed off to Istanbul…

I think you all know that Islam is the dominant religion of Turkey, so we definitely had to visit some mosques during our couple of weeks there. We had heard that the “Sultan Ahmed Mosque” was one of the most impressive buildings of Istanbul and I have to say that it wasn’t a lie. As you can see on the picture it is a beautiful mosque and to be honest, I think these buildings are much more breathtaking  than our churches in Belgium.

Even though Turkey still maintains its traditional and historical values, they try to be a modern Western state. But in my point of view there’s a lot of difference between several  cities. When we were visiting Trabzon for example, it was rather traditional, but in Istanbul the Western influence is very obvious. What I also want to mention about Trabzon is that we all tried to folk dance over there, because folk dancing is very popular in that city.So that was definitely a nice experience for all of us…

While I’m talking about traditions, I also want to show you something we ate last night. At first I thought it was a kind of sandwich, but when I put it in my mouth I was in shock… Because there was something in it that I wasn’t used to eating on my sandwich. Besides meat, cheese and potatoes, there was also some yogurt in “Börek”. So I definitely wasn’t expecting yogurt to be an ingredient. But yogurt seems to be very popular here, and I have to say that it didn’t taste that bad… 

With these new experiences we’re travelling to our next destination. If you’re curious to know where we’re going, keep on following our blog and we’ll keep you posted!

Enjoy your day,
Lisa Van Gassen

Turkey week 5

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey
           

Turkey... mmm... oh no, Turkey, the country

Hi there readers! I hope you've had a great week. We did!

Our trip is going great! We've left the former USSR, and are now heading more westward. This time we're having a stop just outside Europe, more specifically in Turkey. In this post, I will give you some general information about Turkey and also some information about places we've visited.

So, we're in Turkey now. Turkey is a country with a very interesting history. It was the center of the Ottoman Empire (or the Sublime Ottoman State), which existed from 1299 until 1923 and if you think about it, that really isn't THAT long ago.

After we've found our hostel and did some unpacking, we decided to get a bit into the city of Istanbul, which is the biggest city of Turkey, and is sometimes mistaken for the capital of the country, but the real capital is of course Ankara. But I'm drifting away, so back to Istanbul!

Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, so it is and has always been a big city. A cool thing about the city is that it's on the border of Europe and Asia. There's a European and an Asian side of the city. The two parts are divided by the river Bosporus. So you can go from Europe to Asia in very little time by crossing the river with a boat, which is something very special. In the picture, you can see a photo of the city and the Bosporus. 

So that's it for me from Turkey! Our next stop is Bulgaria, so maybe you'll read more of me when we're there! Don't forget to stop by and read the posts about Turkey from my friends in the next couple of days!

Bye!

Jens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul

Tourism, the proud of Turkey!

Hey everyone, it’s me, Jorick

We and our group are visiting Turkey.  We really looked forward to visit this country because it was very cold in the previous countries we visited. Now, we’re in Turkey where the weather is much nicer J. Turkey is a very large country so we’d really like to visit as much regions as we can. We travel from the east to the west. We will especially visit economic areas. First we will visit Trabzon and then we’ll travel more to the west.

Trabzon is a city located at the coast of the Black Sea in the northeast of Turkey. The city is known for its fishery. Twenty percent of the total Turkish fishery is made by the Trabzon fishers, which is quiet impressive I think.

From Trabzon we go to the southeast, to Antalya. Antalya is a very touristic city that is very popular among European tourists. The last 10-15 years, Turkey built out its tourism sector and became one of the leading countries in tourism. Antalya is a “textbook example” of it, it’s one of Turkey’s leading cities in tourism and we must say that we’re really having a nice time up in here. But tourism isn’t the only source of income for the Antalya region. Agriculture too is a very important economic factor for Antalya. This consists of olives, citrus fruits, cotton, bananas and cut flowers. We all agreed that Antalya is an economically progressive region.

Antalya was a great experience. Now, off to Istanbul! Arriving in this city, we were very impressed! Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey and even Europe. Istanbul is also the center of Turkish economic life. This fact doesn’t surprise us. Istanbul on the Bosporus, is the perfect connection for trade between Europe and Asia. Eurasian trade offers enormous opportunities for this city and it’s an advantage for economic life over there! Furthermore, Istanbul also connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea. Like I said before, Antalya is one of the most important cities for the tourism sector, but so do Istanbul. With about 4 to 5 million tourists a year, Istanbul is a very attractive place to be.

We can definitely say that our trip to Turkey was very interested and quite impressive.  However, we certainly hadn’t enough time to visit everything... So, maybe I’ll come back to discover the remaining tourist attractions.

I hope you really liked my blog and if there are any questions you just let me know J

Jorick Verschraegen

Turkey week 5 (Economics)

Source: http://wikitravel.org/en/Turkey

An upcoming place to be for tourists

Dear followers, we are already in week number 4, we are now almost traveling for one month and we are still in our 4^th country namely Georgia.

Georgia has been good so far but now I would like to focus on their economy. Georgia has been involved in commerce with many countries and empires since the ancient times. This was due to their location at the black sea and later at the Silk Road. Their main goods that they traded were gold, silver, copper and iron. They are also famous for their wines. They have been making wine for ages. Their principal economic sectors are their agriculture and tourism due to its climate and topography.

Since the fall of the USSR in 1991 Georgia reformed to a free market but not everything went well with this change. They have known a severe economic collapse and with the civil war and military conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, this made everything worse. Their financial crisis had reached such a high point that they have asked for some help. Luckily they received it from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in 1995. They received 206 million US dollars.

In the 21^st century Georgia had a real GDP growth rate of 12% and this made Georgia the fastest growing economies in Eastern Europe.  The world bank declared Georgia as “the number one economic reformer in the world” because they rose from place 112 to 18 in a list in terms of ease of doing business. On the other hand it had still a high unemployment rate and a low median income compared to other European countries.

In 2006 Russia banned the import of Georgian wine and this was a big problem for Georgia because Russia was there biggest trading partner. Russia also increased the price of gas for Georgia and therefore Georgia had an increase of inflation. Luckily in 2007 they could export to a lot of other countries in 2007 which was good for their economy. Their main imports are natural gas, oil products, machinery and parts and transport equipment.

In 2001 54% if the population lived below the national poverty line but by 2006 this was only 34%. This is a curve that is still lowering which is good for Georgia and the people living in Georgia.

We’ve seen a lot of poor people, you just can’t compare their way of live with ours. It is very different. I’m glad I’ve seen it here, but now it is time to move on. Next stop: Turkey!

Thank you for reading and feel free to comment.

Matthias Denys

Week 4 Georgia (economics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#Economy

Genovia? Georgia?

After visiting Uzbekistan, we went north and arrived at Georgia. First, I thought of the movie “The Princess Diaries” with Anne Hathaway. The story tells about a young girl that becomes a princess of the country Genovia. The two names are similar so it wasn’t that accidental. Unfortunately, Genovia is an imaginary country but we were lucky to experience Georgia.

I admit, I couldn’t point on the map were this country was situated. With a little bit of help from my friends, I knew Georgia was bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Tbilisi is the capital and also the largest city in Georgia. They have a population of almost 4,7 million. I have always wondered which climate a mountainous country had. Well, I experienced it myself.  This country has a very complex geographic setting. It’s situated in the South Caucasus. It is also a very mountainous country. After 2 hours hiking, our feet already hurt. But it was worth it. We saw the highest mountain; Mount Shkhara that measures 5 068 meters. Amazing!

The highland areas of southern Georgia are often called as the Lesser Caucasus Mountains. This region has a lot of interconnected mountain ranges and plateaus. The Javakheti Volcanic Plateau is a large grassland plain with many wetlands and alpine lakes. But you can find also hot springs. At the end of the day, we found one! I can assure you, it was extraordinary but especially soothing.

Thank you for reading my blog and feel free to leave a comment!

Isabella

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#Geography_and_climate

Georgia, საქართველო, Sakartvelo, ... Whatever!

Hello everyone! It's Jens again, this time from Georgia, which is already the fourth country we're visiting in this trip. Time's flying!

So, I'm going to introduce you all to Georgia, by telling some general stuff about the country. I hope you enjoy it!

Just as the previous countries we've visited, Georgia used to be a part of the USSR, so I think you know approximately where to find it on a map. It's located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, as Wikipedia describes it poetically!

There are around 4 469 200 people living in Georgia. Their capital is Tbilisi, and has a population of 1 152 500. The city is located at the banks of the Kura River. It's already been the capital for nearly 1500 years. Our visit to the city was fun and interesting. We've visited the building of the Roads Department, which you can see in the left picture. It's a very strange and unique building! I've never seen anything like it before. We've also visited the Parliament, the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet and we've seen a lot of other things, like the Freedom Square (right picture), with next to it the City Hall of Tbilisi, which is also a nice building.

It was very easy to see a big part of the city in little time, because of the metro network. The network is very basic, with only two lines and 22 stations, but it helped us very good to get to see a big part of the city without losing too much time.

So, that was it for the general things about Georgia, and some information about the things we've seen during our visit. I hope you liked it as much as we did. See you!

Jens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tbilisi