Confusion. We are feeling tired from a 13 hour trip by plane + 4 hours of waiting in the airports. The noise of the city blends in with the humid and thick air on the street and surrounds us like a weird invisible bubble. We got some sleep in the morning, woke up at 11 and joined our host and friend Tor for a short city tour. We are walking behind him, avoiding bumping into people, looking around at all the different things (food, fruits, colors, merchandise, cars), while at the same time trying to understand his words and finding my way through people.

The feeling of novelty experienced in this totally different Asian city is so overwhelming. It doesn’t feel like what one might describe as a culture shock, it’s a bit more than that. I bump into a senior citizen. I look back and realize I don’t know how to apologize for that. He looks at me and I feel embarrassed but I do my best to use the universal language of gesture to let him know I am sorry. What comes to my head is “Oh wow, I won’t be able to describe to people basic things that otherwise would take only the 1/10th of a second for me to communicate.” I am not able to figure out where I am, in relation to where the apartment we rented might be. I put effort into remembering the things that Tor explains and shows: this is the bank, drug store, good restaurant with excellent Thai food and great prices, massage place, clothes boutique, 7 Eleven – open 24hrs/day, the State Tower, the supermarket.

The city is enormous. We take the Skytrain to Paragon Center where we see unexpected displays of technology, luxurious products and intricate designs. We get familiar with using the train tickets, with the map and some of the words that one needs to know while in Thailand. We check out the True Internet Cafe, a fancy place where you can pay for hight speed internet connection and chill out with a drink. We get tea, ice cream and fruits (the ones that people usually sell on the streets, like pineapple and durian fruits) and go back to our neighborhood to find a place to eat. We realize how different Thai food actually is from what we had expected. You don’t really use chop sticks and don’t really go for vegetarian dishes. You get large portions of rice with chicken or pork meat, spicy thai salad with shrimps, seaweed soup and large glasses of juice or tea with ice.

Finally, the day comes to an end. We gather our thoughts and write down some of the things we will be doing during the coming week. Check out our next post where we talk about the Ocean World adventure and more!

Bucharest is the capital city of Romania, it’s an ever-changing city, constantly revealing different styles and influences just around the corner. Although we have previously explored Bucharest with the rest of our team last year, this time our one-day adventure was even more exciting. First of all, we had a personal driver to take us to the city and everywhere we wanted to go for the entire day, then we got a new camera and we had fun discovering new things, dishes and places.

How We Got a Personal Driver

When we arrived in Sinaia we met a taxi driver who helped us with the luggage and with finding our way around the city. We soon realized that from April to May, which is the duration of our stay, people are not so interested in visiting remote locations in the mountains this time of the year, even though Sinaia offers the perfect balance between of adventurous explorations, solitude and social life.

The taxi driver, Mr. P, gave us his number and we would call him to pick us up from the food store or just take us to different places in the city. The day we went to Bucharest, we called him to take us to the train station, but he made us an attractive invitation, to take us to Bucharest and back, and drive us around the city wherever we wanted, for the same price as the train tickets. We couldn’t resist so we ended up having a private driver for the day.

Why We Love the Canon 60D

While in Bucharest we picked up a new Canon 60D. Having used a few other Canon DSLR’s as well as a 7D before, we were already familiar with the 60D’s awesome photo and HD video quality. This camera is Canon’s first DSLR with an articulating vari-angle screen. The articulating screen is a great feature for us, because of the ability to take photos from more angles (both low to the ground and above your head) and see your composition on live view with the tilted screen. Also to being able to more easily compose a shot by flipping the screen around towards the lens to face you while you are while on a tripod for video or timed still photos is a great help when you don’t have a cameraman.

3 Interesting Things about Bucharest

Interesting fact #1 The House of People is not only the largest, most expensive and heaviest administrative building in the world, but also the most… dramatic looking in HDR photos, as discovered by us. If you have a DSLR camera that shoots 5fps or more then you can even take handheld HDR shots , you can experiment with HDR photography on any building and make it look more dramatic and memorable.

Interesting fact #2 There are a couple of websites where you can find great deals for restaurants and other places in Bucharest where you can have a good time. We found a deal at Arcade Cafe, where we got a tasty plate of four cheese spaghetti and two fruit shakes for a little over 3 dollars. the place itself is nice and you can also get interesting salads for pretty good prices, even if you don’t have a discount coupon.

Interesting fact #3 Bucharest is a big city with large wide open intersections, unlike the intersections in cities like Philadelphia or NY. It is crowded during the morning and the evening, because of all the people rushing to go home, to the office or shopping, but overall – you will probably feel less stressed or claustrophobic by the urban buzz than you might in the big metropolitan cities of the world.

We arrived in Sinaia a couple of days ago and it already feels like home. The apartment we found is nicely furnished and comfortable. We have everything that we need and more, since the first things we did even from day one were setting up the best workspace and adding a personal touch to the space we would be living for two months. The wine stand we got in Serbia looks great, and we filled the basket on the dining table with all the cool snacks we could find at the local store. We are surrounded by mountains and the view outside any window is amazing. Here is a short video we made with the apartment that we wanted to share with you.

Sinaia is a tourist location mostly known for the Peles and Pelisor Castles, which used to be the royal residence of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania. Nearby, and within walking distance, we can also find the Sinaia Monastery, Sinaia Casino and the house where George Enescu lived for a while. The town is pretty small and quiet, but the beauty of nature surrounding us makes it a perfect location after our previous city adventure in Serbia.

We will come back with more posts and photos really soon, so stay in touch with us through our RSS or by following our twitter accounts.

Getting around a new city with that has a different language and alphabet can be a challenge if you don’t have a strategy. There are a couple of very useful iPhone apps for people who are traveling the world that we have been using almost every day.

Every time we need to call a taxi we call through Skype credit, via Skype for iPhone, to avoid long distance charges. We learned quickly that it is important to ask, “Do you speak English?” when calling the taxi, because if they don’t you may just get hung up on rather than being transferred to someone who does. Once the taxi arrives we have the address ready to show them, full screen on the iPhone through google translate. Right away without having to try to explain, the driver will know where we want to go.

In our experience so far the taxi drivers have always been very nice and have been very patient in understanding where we need to go. We have never ran into the issue of someone trying to charge us more money as a foreigner.

Google Translate for iPhone

While walking around the city we use Cartographer, an iPhone app that stores offline maps. This is incredibly useful because using online maps with an expensive international data plan would use up your plan’s megabytes in about a day. You can save pins all over of your favorite locations, and you can choose different icons to differentiate places on your map. (This is also useful to show a taxi driver so that they can see the street names.)

The Cartographer

Skype, Google Translate and the Cartographer are our most frequently used apps while traveling, but there are a few more very useful apps worth mentioning as well. iCurrencyPad allows for quick currency conversions so you can check to make sure you are getting a good rate at an exchange office, or to see how much your meal would have cost in USD. A world clock app like Clock Pro can help you keep track of time in other countries from where you are, and lastly, Kayak’s iPhone app is great for checking flight prices, setting price alerts, and storing things such as flight schedules and confirmation numbers.

These are our favorite iPhone apps for travel. What apps have you found useful while traveling?

During the second month in Serbia we went out more, exploring the city of Novi Sad and watching it come alive under the warm spring sun. For the past two weeks we have been busy working on our projects. We have met activeCollab’s founder - Ilija Studen, worked on our travel photo book and discovered new places every time we went out.

We enjoyed taking relaxing walks to the center of the city, observing interesting architectural details and decorational styles. We discovered delicious snacks and goodies at “zdrava hrana” kiosks, loved the ice-cream on Dunavska street and had a good time interacting with different people we talked to. We had been looking for the right souvenir and finally, right before we crossed the border, we found this simply awesome wine stand made of wood.

The best part about Novi Sad is that it’s a nice, relaxed and surprising city – where you can feel comfortable and safe. You can reach the center of the city pretty fast or any other place, store, restaurant and bank you may need. Everybody is nice and more familiar with a back life style that surprised us, as we didn’t expect to see so many people taking a walk and having dinner outside during the work week. The taxi drivers deserve a special “thank you” for always trying to understand where we wanted to go and driving us safely to a specific location or back home.

We loved the food, the town and a couple of unique restaurants we experienced during our stay. We are grateful to Alex and his friends for helping us out with everything. We are leaving Serbia and moving to the next chapter: Sinaia, Romania. Updates coming soon!

Best part about Novi Sad? It’s a city with personality: every pub, restaurant and cafe is unique and memorable. The owners seem to put a lot of effort into making that specific place look good and be different from any other place you may go to in Novi Sad.
Here are our favorite restaurants we went to during our stay in Serbia, along with a few words reflecting our experiences and thoughts related to each of them. Also, the list is ordered – it’s a top 9 list of the best places we enjoyed discovering during our stay in Serbia.

1. Alla Lanterna

Our favorite restaurant. The waiting service here was the best of any restaurant we have been to in Serbia. Twice we were there near closing, and we were happy to find them open later on Sunday when so many other restaurants would be closed or close early in the evening. We had an awesome ravioli in a walnut sauce and seafood salad. The first time we went, because we were so hungry and we loved the food, we decided to order the “Lanterna Rolada”, which at 375 dinars we expected to be a small sandwich type roll to share. When it was put down in front of us we couldn’t believe how big it was. It was the biggest dish we have ever seen and would not be possible for one person to consume alone.

2. Modena Caffe & Pizzeria

Our second favorite and most visited restaurant: fresh, natural, rich flavored dishes – including huge sandwiches and the best cheese cake with forest fruits icing we ever had. The restaurant in the center of the city looks chic and stylish. Every time you go there you are tempted to choose something new: from pasta to pizzas, salads and sandwiches. In Mercator, they have a cool buffet where you find focaccia, good cheese and various salad mixes that you will definitely enjoy for breakfast.

3. Fish and Zelenish

Unique, friendly, surprising and special. The food is amazing and the service is great. The kitchen is detached from the main restaurant (customers area), it is actually across the street – this allows you to enjoy the food in a clean and fresh room, and even imagine that the cooking part didn’t really happen, because there’s no trace of it.

The decorations on the walls are unique and cool and we felt like they managed to connect you with the story (history) of this restaurant through images, textures and souvenirs.

4. Pomodoro Rosso

A nice Italian restaurant with great looking and great tasting food. We enjoyed this place a lot, and while the inside is decorated very nicely, we would have made some adjustments. They advertise a lot and people seem to recommend it often as one of the best restaurants in Novi Sad.

5. Sichuan:

Awesome chicken with peanuts (kikiriki). Lots of peanuts with an interesting sauce. Authentic Asian inspired interior design. Overall a much fancier Chinese restaurant than you would find in the US where there are typically more fast food Chinese restaurants. An elegant presentation and enjoyable interpretation of Chinese food. Also it is the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.

6. BellaNapoli

This is a great Italian Restaurant we found in Belgrade. It made it to our list mainly because of the three cheeses plate we enjoyed with focaccia, olive oil and walnuts.

The walls are covered with paintings and images from various Italian places and the menu is in Serbian, English and Italian.

7. Filija

Elegant with a twist: baroque and romantic influences that you could easily recognize in the choice of furniture, wallpaper and decorations. The twist is introduced with the use of black and white pictures of trees covering the tall inside pillars, as well as the big picture with the root of an old tree covering one of the walls.

The dishes are well chosen, closer to the traditional cuisine – that is, you are not taken by surprise when you choose a salad or a main dish. The staff is doing a good job, although it’s more difficult to talk with them about our food choices when they are not used to speaking in English that much.

8. Ananda

Probably one of if not the only vegan restaurant in Novi Sad. It is more of a tea lounge than an actual restaurant, but all of the food they serve is vegan… and – surprise, surprise! – the rice cake is actually really good!

Ananda was a good find, but we only went to this place twice because we found “Zdrava hrana” shops nearby and enjoyed the whole grain snacks from there as well.

9. Two Sticks

This is the Restaurant we went to for Bryan’s Birthday. This is where we learned our favorite Serbian word – “kikiriki” – a word that makes us smile every time we see peanuts. The food is really good, the chicken with peanuts is a generous meal you may only be able to finish alone if you are starving. They use a lot of soy sauce with everything and the salads look good. The place doesn’t look authentic – but they are trying to convey the message of “Asian inspired food” through some interesting decorational elements.

Every time we go out we see the fortress on the other side of the bank and next to it – a nice bridge covered in bright red, purple, blue and green lights at night. As you cross this bridge, you see the city far into the left and right sides. What could be more awesome than taking these beautiful images with us and add them to our travel blog?

We had fun taking some photos at night with a longer exposure using a tripod and we took a panoramic shot with the Varadin Bridge and the Petrovaradin Fortress. Recently we have been very busy working, but we will be exploring the city some more soon.

The Varadin Bridge was rebuilt after the NATO bombings in 1999. It is also called the “Varadin Rainbow” because of the lights turned on at night, which are colorful and bright. There is this interesting article written by a student who witnessed the bombings at the time. There is a lot of grief coming through from his words. It made me understand that it’s more than just a lovely bridge we take photos of, it’s a place filled with memories about past events and it stands as a proof of the recovery of the city after dozens of unfortunate events.

It was fun taking these pictures. I realized again that we are discovering new places and the excitement of discovery is one of the best things about travelling. At the same time, there is always a story behind every bridge, monument, fortress or road we see and that story is worth remembering.

If you think of healthy food you may think of fresh salads, organic food and high protein snacks. What if you had all of that wrapped in tortillas and seasoned the way you like it? Today we had a lot of fun making some fajitas or Mexican wraps with a bunch of different ingredients we fetched from the food store.

Our favorite combination includes (but is not limited to) fresh red peppers of two varieties, tomatoes, onion, lettuce, sweet canned corn and cheddar cheese. You may want to add chunks of meat or soy meat, hard boiled eggs, taco and chilli seasonings and salsa. You can make them spicy, mild or however you want.

We cut the vegetables, heated the tortillas and cooked the peppers, onions and soy meat. Then we laid out all the prepared ingredients on plates. The fun part is when you have all the ingredients in different dishes in front of you and make your own wrap every time. Whether you like hot or cold wraps, it will take about half an hour to make and enjoy them as well.