🇬🇷🇷🇴🇷🇸 Mirage of Oases

Hello Adventurers, 

When does an achievement expire? Like, what’s the grace period for juicing it — and yapping about it — before it goes stale, loses oomph, and induces yawns in audiences? Greece, Romania, and Serbia…they all had me wondering ‘bout these things as I marathoned ‘em this week.

Yes, these Balkan countries are different polities…but they do share one commonality; they’re has-beens. All live in the past…and all are past their primes. And that is a personal fear of mine; to peak, have your best — or most impactful — days behind you, and proceed thereafter on cruise control or — at worst — in decline.

Furthermore, I’d argue that these three places are backsliders; Greece as the cradle of Western civilization now lacking civility as the current administration actively lets migrants die (i.e. refusing to bail out humans in need after Greece itself has been repeatedly bailed out by others). Ceaușescu’s problematic Romania — peculiar in its entertaining defiance of USSR positions — now free…to wrestle with rampant corruption and widespread falling apart-ness. And Serbia — the once power centre of Yugoslavia — segueing from authoritarianism to regional belligerent back to authoritarianism (with the requisite decline in media freedoms and disintegrating civli liberties today).

This issue of the newsletter covers marathons of Athens, Bucharest, and Belgrade…where I examined the pedestaled things of yesteryear (championed by these capitals as visitational lures), as I wondered what the future holds for these places; ones who obsess over the past, but pay less mind to the implications of softening human rights today (i.e. the markers of a society’s last rites). So let’s get into it…but keep it moving forward (unlike them).

- Ben Pobjoy

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 56

• Flights taken: 58

• Kilometres flown: 82,911

• Marathons completed: 170

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 8,100.7

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 71,192

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: My cousin Freya recently moved to Austria to study German…and I got to meet her in Vienna the other week (for the first time ever). Then, her parents happened to be vacationing in Athens this week…and I got to hang with my Auntie Catherine and my Uncle Foxy (who I haven’t seen in 25 years). All of this was totally serendipitous, and I’m so grateful that I could see some of my Mancunian fam🥰

• The Biggest Obstacle: I was sick with a head cold earlier this week… and was largely operating on fumes😤

• The Lesson Learned: We can never rest on our laurels…because time is a vehicle that moves forward…so past glories always reduce in size when seen in the rear-view mirror😑

FIELD NOTES: ATHENS, GREECE

Sick baby needed a crib in the cradle of western civilization

It’s rare that the sequel is better than the original…but my second ‘marathoning trip’ to Athens was better than my first. And comically, I arrived both times pretty busted; my first time there was a coupla years ago when I landed after a sleepless, red-eye flight…and auto-ripped a marathon upon landing on a sweltering 40°C / 100°F+ day (which — I won’t lie — was a miserable experience). And this time around, I arrived sick — and not as in Bart Simpson cowabunga gnarly — but as in nauseous and head cold-y because I pushed my body too hard the week prior and it was like, “Bish, I’ll show you who’s boss!”

Anyhoo, I did much of Athens’ historical stuff last time I was there…which LULZingly produced my most successful selfie of all time (dunno why but the media always runs that photo of me…and I bet it has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people by now). And this time around, I just vibed-out on a super pleasant marathon — to nowhere in particular — on a gorgeous and breezy day (where no additional selfie was needed).

If you’ve never been to Athens, you gotta go. It is unlike anywhere else in the world; it feels like Tel Aviv’s multi-storey buildings drizzled over a hilly terrain with Berlin’s graffiti everywhere and Cairo’s wild-ass drivers — motorcar and motorcycle — driving crazy…amidst the chill, and all ‘round the best indulgences that the Mediterranean has to offer; food, coffee, sun, sea, booze and loads else. Furthermore, there’s all the temples — and ruins — from classical antiquity…and you can basically retrace the steps of some of the most important thinkers that ever existed on the planet! So go there…and stroll like Socrates!

Greece is the birthplace of too much of importance to list; from democracy to sorta kinda homosexuality. And while I’m only a practitioner of one, I’m a fan of both — sans the historical pederasty — but as a straight dude I have no clue what the gay scene is like in Greece today…but the men sure love riding ‘nut to butt’ on crotch-rockets and scooters. Slurp!

Anyhoo, my big hope for this visit was to get meta and do a marathon-as-pilgrimage to Marathon — being a place just outside of Athens — that invented, well, the marathon itself. The elevation to get there is real (being hundreds and hundreds of metres) — and there’s no coverage from the sun once you get up into the hills — and I won’t make excuses…but I was too ill to do it (meaning it remains unfinished business…so I’ll drag the wife to Athens some point down the road).

In lieu of marathoning to Marathon, I marathoned the flatter parts of Athens where I could stay in the shade so I didn’t make my sick self sicker, and the experience still ruled. Greeks are the best; I love observing how much they enjoy one another (be it two old dudes chatting animatedly in a doorway or some 30 deep family loudly and joyously taking over a restaurant terrace, and having the time of their lives). It’s good living in these parts.

I won’t bore you with details…but Athens — under its epicurean epidermis — is a radical place of resistance…so I explored Exarcheia, numerous squats, and poked around Prosfygika (pictured below). If you do this, tread carefully, be sensitive, and respectfully fuck-off fast if told to leave by squatters.

Lastly, Greece is roasting in the summertime…but Athens’ golden light is spectacular at both sunrise and sunset…so my reco is to get up early, siesta from high noon ‘til whenever the sun gets less satanic, then get out there to catch a sunset…and democratically elect to stay out late; eating and drinking yourself silly!

FIELD NOTES: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

The big dict energy lingers

The ROI concerning travel is personal because it comes down to one’s prerogative(s). Like, we may desire to blob-out and recharge in some sun destination — or go adventure somewhere exotic — or temporarily ball-out like some fancy pants (in a playfully escapist manner that we couldn’t afford to financially sustain in our regular lives back home)…and all of it is legit.

Me? I explore essence when travelling…because I cover a lot of ground when marathoning 43 kilometres somewhere. So I see the lauded stuff…and often much else; especially in physically smaller places (where it isn’t uncommon for me to trek boring industrial stretches, highway shoulders, pass through everyday neighbourhoods where the locals live or stumble upon the shit that tourism boards try and sweep under the rug…all in my quest to get to 43 kilometres by foot in a day.

I typically use the newsletter to present findings collected from going ‘wide’ in a place via marathon — which I did do in Bucharest — but I wanted to mix things up in this week…and go deep on dictatorship. Why? Well, because I had a rare opportunity to ‘two birds, one stone’ a former dictator’s workplace as well as his home…so that’s what we’re gonna look at!

But first…Bucharest itself; the place is so puzzling in its inconsistencies (and made me realize how ‘low standards’ the European Union is). Yes, Bucharest has the flashy stuff (like grand boulevards, historical buildings with impressive architecture, and some pleasant neighbourhoods; be they new or old)…but much of it is busted and inhabited by broke and very tired-looking people. As such, it is sus; leering men standing in dark corridors and courtyards at night, decaying buildings citywide cowering from the big bad wolf or anything gust-y, seemingly dead-but-just-hammered people laid out on the sidewalks in broad daylight (beside an emptied 2+ litre bottle of beer), gruff Daniel Johnston-looking dudes with the diabetic leg sores / rotting feet that are airing out their doggies in public view, and lots of people asking for spare change (which never bothers me…but it is aggressive here, and voluminous ala I was gettin’ hit up 20 times a day).

That said, I did like the massive communist-era apartment complexes everywhere (it felt like time travel to the 1980s…as did everyone’s clothing), the Romani women in their traditional threads were mint, the old ladies informally selling flowers and celeriac outta plastic bags were jowly charmers, and the zillion micro-casinos with the neon lights and the shady clientele were cinematic. But be warned; certain parts of the city reek like human poo (by vice of in-the-sun-and-heat dumpsters full of used toilet paper…which the old plumbing can’t swallow), and the drivers / driving here is mental vis-à-vis five lane roads that converge with a handful of other five lane roads at an intersection of five roads (so you’ll see five car accidents a day as you’re nearly hit by five cars a day). Here, the drivers aren’t bad…it’s just that the road design is peak moron vibes.

Anyhoo, Bucharest is the butthole of Europe, and my gloves-off proctological examination of it — via two marathons — was finger licking good…times. Lastly, shout-out to every restaurant that served me consistently mediocre food, assembled with minimal effort (being the prevailing attitude here), and always plated in a weird-portioned, toppled-over manner…that looked like it was drop-kicked by a couldn’t-care-less cook. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t wanna bore you with too much madman minutiae, so I’ll keep things high-level; Romania was governed by a totalitarian dictator for decades. In the early 1970s he visited North Korea and got Juche’d up on ruler ‘roids…so he razed and rebuilt parts of Bucharest via systemization…and many of his grand ambitions were flops nation-wide.

The wildest building of his — in Bucharest — is the House of the Republic turned Palace of the Parliament. Second to marathoning past the Pentagon a few years ago, this Bucharest behemoth is one of the most imposing and ominous buildings I’ve ever seen / stepped foot in; 276 feet tall, a floor area that’s 3,930,000 square feet, a volume that’s 90,000,000 cubic feet, and a weight of 9.04 billion pounds (which causes it to sink six millimetres a year). The best? The building is still unfinished decades-later… and only 30% occupied…so they’ll let you play basketball inside (it seems like you can do whatever you want in Eastern Europe so long as the right person / people get paid).

Beyond his workplace, I also visited Ceaușescu’s personal mansion. I can’t knock the gaudiness of its decor (because rich people tend to have bad taste which is why I reject that ‘eat the rich’ slogan)…but nothing ‘bout a personal / private palace feels all that peasant or proletariat IMHO. Anyhoo, him and his wife drained the commie coffers on themselves (and their projects)…which ushered in austerity proceeded by revolution…proceeded by Nicolae and Elena being executed by firing squad (being the only violent overthrow in all of the ‘89 revolutions).

I toured the Palace and the Mansion for next to nothing, the state-supplied guides in both sanitized all state-related stories, and doofus boomers in my tour groups consistently ruined both tours (i.e. their telephones weren’t set to silent / their phones kept ringing / they didn’t know how to turn ringing phones off, they took calls on the tour as the guide spoke, the tour guide constantly yelled at them for touching silk walls and artifacts…after they were explicitly told not to touch anything 500 times, and guides snapped at the entitled male idiots who took every opportunity to voice their painful ‘zingers’ or offer colour commentary atop the not-yet-done-speaking guide…being rude intrusions that no one asked for in our captive audience). I’m generally too cash-strapped to do guided tours on this project…but those retirees expedited my retirement from ever doing them again. Old people…plz STFU on these things!

I’m no fan of gulags, but after hitting Bucharest with those boomers…I def know some genuine waste-of-space geezers I’d reco for a lil yard work, nahmean? Anyhoo, Bucharest was a total mind fuck…so misguided yet so memorable…and I’m glad I went, but I got no desire to ever return.

FIELD NOTES: BELGRADE, SERBIA

The emblematic double-headed eagle with claws out

Belgrade is big on basketball and bravado. Like, I’ve never been to a place with so many basketball courts…where the basketball nets have such variance in industrial design. Furthermore, I’ve also never seen so many baller-aspirant dudes with the tight fade haircuts wearing the ankle tapered tight grey sweatpants (accentuating homoerotic ‘sausage and beans’ bulges in the crotch zone) arguing with the tight ponytailed ladies — taut faces pulled upwards to create looks of strained aghast — with the plump cc’d filler lips going off. Male or female, they duke it out, grab their junk, hock a loogie on the sidewalk, and part with a sneer. Tough love, tough crowd…and me just standing there taking it in ala the bravo of human theatre.

Split by the Sava River, you got New Belgrade on the west side and Belgrade proper — being the older part — on the east side. And both rip, but for different reasons.

I spent the majority of my time marathoning the west side (likely uncommon for visitors)…and I did so for a few reasons; 1) There’s a path that starts in Park Ušće that runs along the south bank of the Danube…and in Eastern Europe, there’s all these dodgy ‘docked dance clubs on mega boats’ raging at all hours on said river…and they always tickle me 2) I was keen to visit the bombed Komanda Vazduhoplovstva building…but the military guards there did not like my camera-toting presence…and they shooed me away — before they started jogging my way — as I scrammed the fuck outta there 3) I just had to see the whopping brutalist Western City Gate 4) New Belgrade is a planned city organized into 72 communist-style mega ‘block’ complexes (pictured above)…and I wanted to wander as many as I could because they are utterly fascinating (architecturally drab, cold concrete, some in disrepair, each housing thousands and thousands of people, and with shops and parks woven into each as some grand socialist design). This side of the river has presence — and a panopticon vibe — and slums…and I really don’t know any other weirdo…other than me that’d marathon it. So — if anything — just go over to Donji Grad on the east side; a charming lil pocket of 19th century buildings on the bank of the river that house nice restos and cute cafés.

Serbia — like America — is a complicated place that has a chubby for control and/or conflict; see mid 20th century Tito, the not too distant Milošević, and today’s Vučić. Politicians don’t always reflect the populace…but when a place is — pushovers of…or pushers for — belligerence, you’ll sometimes take a facial of comeuppance.

Anyhoo, on the west side of the Sava River, I visited Ružica — a military church (pictured above) — on the grounds of Belgrade’s ancient fortress. With decor made outta destructive things as offerings to God and holiness and faith or whatever…and it stumped me. But then I got even more stumped by the mosaic of Garfield on the walls of the grounds. Warring or not, I guess everyone loves lasagna / hates Mondays.

Truthfully, I made my way over to that side of the river to go visit the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defence building (pictured below) that was symbolically bombed — even though it was empty at the time — by NATO in 1999. It is now side-draped with a ginormous militaristic billboard that says, “Whoever dares, can. Whoever knows no fear, moves forward” which is a quote attributed to the most decorated Serbian military officer in history. Yikes.

While I have marathoned Palestine — and have seen the pockmarked scars of small-arms warfare — I’ve never seen blasted destruction caused by missiles with my own eyes…until now. And it is fucked up….fucked like the massive banner across the street from the bombed building with the graphic images of dead Serb kids killed by NATO bombs, and fucked like the mural (partially visible in the bottom left of the photo below) that says, “When the army returns to Kosovo…” (i.e. Serbia never recognized Kosovo’s independence, these murals are pro-invasion of said ‘province’, and I saw a bunch of ‘em all over the city). Doubles yikes.

Anyhoo, I for an I…and the world goes rewind. Now I don’t know what your vibe is…but if peace is your thing, then fast-forward Serbia for more peaceful pastures.

*ALSO, Belgrade’s cabbies are notorious for their scamming…and I cracked the code on how to get to — and fro — the city centre from the airport on public transit buses (the fare of which must be paid with Serbian Dinars, not card)…and the info ‘bout it all is mostly wrong online…and communicated in Cyrillic…and I successfully decoded it all…so don’t hesitate to hit me up if you’re going to Belgrade and need to know some hacks.

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

When it comes to what we eat, my vibe is ‘to each their own.’ Yes, I’m vegan — but it is just a personal thing — and it isn’t something I feel strongly or righteously about (like, I did marry a Portuguese cavewoman carnivore after all). To me, veganism is just a diet; something that’s right for me and my values, and something that works for me and my active lifestyle. What it isn’t, is my life’s cause or my purpose…or whatever. Basically, it isn’t my identity today nor something I want to be identified with ‘cause vegans are largely annoying. Me? I just hate preachy types in general; whether I agree or disagree with their message. Like, just leave me alone and let me eat in peace…literally.

Anyhoo, veganism is an ideological diet. As such it has universalism — because anyone can adopt it anywhere — and that is precisely why vegan cuisine largely sucks; vegan restaurants sorta serve the same universal shit worldwide:

Hummus wraps, orientalist ‘Buddha Bowls’ (which are just a honky person’s catch-all concoction of stir fried-isms atop brown rice drowning in some ‘has to contain miso’ sauce), turmeric tofu scrambles, etc. Basically, I’m just trying to land the point that some hippy-ish vegan joint in Montreal will generally serve the same stuff as a hippy-ish vegan joint in Mexico City. So ‘place’ rarely makes its way onto plate…which IMO is a big ‘miss’ in many vegan restaurants.

But not Veganaki in Athens! This place makes vegan renditions of Greek classics — like moussaka, souvlaki, keftedakia, etc. — and it is one of my fave restaurants. It isn’t fancy. Rather, it just has awesome vegan Greek food — exceptionally regional in recipe — made with fresh AF Mediterranean produce that is sooo big in taste.

At Veganaki, my go-to is their signature ‘Veganaki special’ (pictured) which has mung bean patties, a greek salad with feta, tzatziki, and potatoes. Best of all, is that all of it is made in-house from whole and nutritious foods (meaning no inclusion of ultra-processed plant-based meat and cheese analogues…which — let’s be honest — can be tasty…but are junky). So the food at Veganaki is tasty and healthy…and that to me is the holy grail.

Anyhoo, I’ve eaten at Veganaki three times across two trips to Athens. Not only is it consistent, but it is across the street from the Temple of Olympian Zeus…so even if you don’t personally think Greek food made vegan is authentic…it is still pretty damn Greek-y when you’re eating Veganaki with views of all the old columns and arches!

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Athens, Bucharest, and Belgrade (all prices converted to USD):

• A soy latte from a café in Athens: $2.80

• One 330 millilitre can of Pepsi Max, a one litre bottle of water, an apple, a banana, and a 90 gram flapjack bar from a grocery store in Bucharest: $3.44

• A 500 millilitre bottle of Coke Zero and a 100 gram bar of Ritter Sport marzipan from a convenience store in Belgrade: $3.26

MARATHON MUSINGS

On the ‘and so?’ of achievements

My Dad sent me an email the other day…y’know, just some parental words of encouragement to keep the faith / keep trekking…tinged with a bit of fatherly concern; inquiring ‘bout how I’m gonna navigate the ‘comedown’ when my Marathon Earth Challenge ends (i.e. when the clock strikes 12AM on New Year’s Day 2024). Truss me, it’ll be easy.

I understand Mikey P’s inquiry but it isn’t a concern of mine…because the Marathon Earth Challenge is a finite year-long project, not an infinite forever lifestyle. The latter would risk me becoming a cringe bozo. 

Basically, this whole project is informed by my perspective on what a goal and/or achievement is; IMO it is something you complete, it is something that hopefully teaches you something, it is something that ideally has some greater utility to others (via knowledge share or inspiration), it is something you must let go of upon completion (i.e. it cannot be forever self-defining and something you talk about non-stop), it cannot remain a former glory mourned, and it must be used as momentum for the ideation / execution of the next goal or achievement. And the cycle must repeat itself; increasingly more challenging each time (as in, no to rote and safety…and yes to risks and danger). Easy goals are fool’s gold…and we know this.

For me, one’s practice must continually be put to the test, and it must function as a catalyst to level-up one’s greater personal growth (as well as the growth of one’s chosen pursuit; be it physical, creative, spiritual, whatever).

So…

Short walks helped me lose 100 lbs in eight months in 2015, then short walks became longer walks (so I could use them to feed in-need people on the streets of Toronto), then longer walks led to marathons beyond Toronto’s city limits, then marathoning led to my first ultramarathon (which was a DIY fundraiser that netted nearly $30,000 for a local homeless shelter), that ultramarathon inspired me to jam with the Terry Fox Foundation to trek 24 hours straight (and raise thousands o’ bucks for them), and that sorta gave me the idea to try and do 10,000 kilometres by foot in 2021 — which I did — which led to this here gonzo world record attempt (like, if successfully completed…and if the paperwork is accepted by the powers that be).

For me, it is all about arriving…then getting on with it; to get to wherever — and whatever’s next — with no long pause or pulpit proclamations about some once done / way back when shit. Snooze. Who cares? Plus, war stories are for Grandpa…and he’s that asshole taking phone calls on guided tours in Bucharest.

And honestly, I don’t care much for what I’ve done…I just trot out the talk when I gotta entice the media to help spread the word about something (‘cause that’s how you engage brands / the reality of how contemporary commerce works). But make no mistake; I’m not an influencer. I’m a doer…doing it for me, with no concern for how it influences others.

Me? I do. I accomplish. I release. And then I ask myself, “And?”. As in, “So what?” and “What’s next?”

And this just comes from a dislike of stuck-ness and stasis and has-beens…as well as me being a neat-freak who hates the dustiness of glory days past. Like, I love punk music…but I had to leave the punk scene ‘cause many of my peers flamed-out, stopped creating, and just started yapping ‘bout the good ol’ days. Like, non-stop. And for them it was nostalgic, but to me it was depressing; acquiescence to the best days and/or the best of us being…behind us?

Nope. Not me. My gear is stuck in drive — not in park or in neutral — and I ripped out the emergency brake long ago. And reversing? BB, it’s just never an option.

So yes, this project will end — and people have started to ask me to do future talks about it, and some publishers think there’s a book to be written about it all — so ‘A’ will quickly get parlayed into ‘B’…but then I’ll move on to the next thing because the revolution has to be permanent; it only moves forward into what can be, and does not get stuck on what was. The latter is death; future possibility decapitated. Instead, you gotta grip it, rip it, and ship it.

It was fascinating to visit Athens and Bucharest and Belgrade this week…

…All experienced as dire warnings about achievements waned and wasted or ‘moves’ unable to be built upon. Of feet kicked up, and ultimately tripped up.

I took it all in — contemplated it — but kept moving upwards and onwards ‘cause that’s the ever-mission.

I want evidence that is current…

…And I expect continual evolution.

No iffs, ands, or buttheads.

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