A quick update from former Yugoslavia

I loved Hungary. Eastern Europe is soooo cool. Plus its affordable. My first night in Budapest I dropped $8 on dinner and had a bottle of water, rice, fries, salad, goulash, roast duck, steak, a pork chop and chicken breast wrapped in bacon.

Last night I went to the Hungarian National Opera in Budapest. I had a great seat for Puccini's Tosca that I bought for $2. Yep, two dollars. It was really cool. The Opera House was beautiful and the music was so loud and the atmoshpere so intimate that it was really impressive.

Anyway, my falling in love with Budapest and subsequent desire to see more of Eastern Europe was accentuated by the fact that tons of people in my hostel were just doing Eastern Europe and were saying that Serbia and Bosnia are incredible. So I decided to bag Venice and Greece and just stick to former Yugoslavia and the Balkans and work my way down to Istanbul where I need to be by June 16th to catch my flight to Prague (its ironic...I was so close to Prague in Budapest but find myself traveling thousands of miles and a continent away to get to Prague).

So, this morning I left Budapest and rode a train to Zagreb, Croatia. It was a pretty cool city. I ran into a bunch of missionaries leaving Zone Conference and they showed me the chapel, which was really cool (havent been for a couple weeks cause the Church hasn't been in the cities I've been in). After lunch with some kids from DC, I went up to Slovenia, riding the train with a couple girls from Boulder. Got into Ljubljana around 8:30pm and came to the hostel which is a converted prison - its really cool. We actually sleep in the cells.

Tomorrow, I'm headed up to the mountains to a small farm town on a lake where word on the street (and my guidebook) has it I can stay with a family on an alpine farm (near an alpine lake) for cheap. Ill be up there for a night or two and then head to Sarajevo (I talked to several people who have been before I decided to go and they all said its very safe, and said its an incredible experience to see the scars of war and a society in healing). So, I decided Greece has been there for thousands of years and will therefore probably be around for many to come, the opportunity to see Bosnia healing from the conflict is a unique one.

Ill be in Sarajevo for probably two days and then go to Serbia (probably Belgrade) before moving on to Transylvania in Romania and then Bulgaria where I believe I will successfuly culminate my quest for the world's greatest yoghurt.

I'm hoping to get into Istanbul on the 12th or so. I'll keep everyone posted as the journey progresses.

p.s. Slovenia is really cool...its so nice to see mountains again. And the temperature!...its a PERFECT 68 or so degrees:)