From the category archives:

Travel

The Day I Met Anthony, The Approach Machine

“Wait a second,” were his last words before he quickly ran back to stop the cute Latina that had just passed us walking in the opposite direction.

I’ve heard those words before.  In fact, it was probably the 20th time he told me that since we left the hostel.

I was left standing alone in the middle of a busy Bogotá street.

Five minutes later, I turn around and see him walking back.

“So?” I asked, even though I knew the outcome.

“Facebook contact info,” he said while grinning ear to ear.

“Good job,” I acted like his motivational coach, but we both knew he didn’t need any motivation.

Even though I’ve been in the game for a while now and have hung out with some fearless men with tight game, it was the first time I’ve seen someone be so brazen during daytime, and without alcohol, too.

In the preceding sixty minutes I’ve seen him come up to more strangers than some of my friends back home have approached in their lives.

I’ve been warned, though.  When we headed out to Bogota’s Zona T neighborhood, he mentioned that he “likes to chat with women.” I figured it was his way of declaring his heterosexuality so I brushed it aside.

What I didn’t know at the time was that “liking to chat with women” meant approaching every single cute girl in his path.

Now I knew.

It was my first time in Colombia.  I still remembered feeling nervous as I boarded the flight from Mexico City, where I spent several months living with a nice girl, to Bogotá, the alleged kidnapping capital of the world.

The Mexican girl was nice, but within a couple of months I quickly felt like a caged animal and needed to break free.  Colombia seemed like the perfect getaway.

It was raining and cloudy when I woke up, so not feeling like going out, I grabbed a history book from my backpack and retreated to a quiet corner.

I’ve had enough of Bogotá and had already booked a flight to the coastal and sunny city of Cartagena.

Suddenly I heard a familiar New York accent behind me: “Hey, do you know where I can grab a bite around here?”

As much as I loved meeting new people and experiencing new cultures, one of the greatest rewards is meeting someone from back home.

“Sure,” I replied.  “Let’s go for a walk.”

And that’s how I met Anthony.

Anthony, 26, was an African-American guy and a New Yorker through and through.  While he wasn’t an imposing figure — he was skinny and only 5’7” — he made it up with the balls of steel, never hesitating to go for what he wanted.

Not even five minutes passed since we were on the street, when he had already stopped and began talking to a cute Latina on the bench.

Minutes later he rejoins me with her Facebook contact info and her phone number.

I knew this would be an interesting day.

Soon he approached women at bus stops, coffee shops and stores: the cute student on the street; the 30s shop assistant in the eyewear store; the older girl waiting at a bus stop; even the MILF surrounded by a group of friends.

He was like a kid in the candy store, fearlessly going for anything and anyone he found attractive.  Didn’t matter if she was alone or with friends.  If he found her attractive, soon he’d be talking to her.

Approach anxiety wasn’t in his dictionary.

“Hey, how do you say ‘married’ in Spanish?”

His entire Spanish vocabulary consisted of two or maybe three words.

“’Casada,’ but to ask if a woman is married would be: ‘Estás casada?’” I was more than happy to provide my translation services in exchange for witnessing this man in action.

He paused while glancing at a hot mid 30s woman with huge boobs who was resting on the bench during her lunch break.

Fighting any hesitation, he suddenly jolted into action and came up to her.  The Latina, appearing surprised, quickly warmed up to him.  After few seconds of chatting, he sat next to her.  He started to entertain her, but she kept showing him the ring on her finger.

Damn, this won’t work.

Several minutes later he smiled, said good-bye and rejoined the base.

“She was married, but I almost got her number.” He said with a devilishly coy smile.

In the past few hours, he’d collected more numbers than I’ve collected over several weekends of going out in dark and smoked filled rooms all while punishing my liver.

Finally feeling tired, we sat down and grabbed some coffee at the outdoor cafe.

“I work for a major airline, so I get to travel often for low prices.  The problem is that these trips come with very short notices, few days max.  The trips are also pretty short, few days at the most.  Thus I cannot really build anything meaningful with the girl,” he began explaining.

“Getting favorable results such as a number or email gives me motivation to come back to a place.  Once I have a girl’s Facebook info or an email, I begin ‘preheating the oven’ with the girl while I’m in the States.  Later on I come back and hopefully seal the deal,” he continued.

“I did well in Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic, even hooking up with a hot car rental employee there.”

“Around twenty contacts,” he scanned through his contacts looking for new ones.  “Not bad, but I’ve had better days,” he continued.  “Most of them will never reply.  It’s all a numbers game.”  At the end of the day he would have approached at least thirty women.

He was in Colombia for only two nights with a flight back tomorrow morning.  I had one more night after that.

When he left, I was back at my hostel but I couldn’t help remembering perhaps one of the most memorable days on this whole journey.

I’ve probably met hundreds of fellow travelers throughout my years roaming around Latin American and Europe.  Unfortunately very few of those  were memorable in some way or another.  Most never ventured off the beaten path and, as a result, ever pushed through their comfort zones.  There’s only so many times you can take pictures of that old cathedral or dirty monument.

That’s why I liked Anthony.  He was different.  He made no excuses.  He always went for what he wanted.  Those reasons alone made him different than 95% of the “men” out there.  And when he wasn’t approaching cute women, he’d tell me some amazing stories from his journeys.

We kept in touch on Facebook after he left.  He kept traveling and always had a couple of interesting stories upon his return, which almost always involved women.

One day he told me that he would be going back to Colombia to seal the deal with one of the girls.  We called this specific girl the “garbage can girl” because he approached her while she was standing near a garbage can in a mall for a long time.

I was optimistic but realistic at the same time.  The first thing I thought was what if he flies out to see her and she stands him up? Stories like these were commonplace.

But this was no average guy.  This was Anthony, the approach machine.  This was Anthony, the modern renegade.

And Anthony wouldn’t be one of those guys weeping after an opportunity fell apart.  He would be back on the streets creating more and more opportunities from an endless sea of targets.

Bulgarian Women: Dark, Mysterious, and More Balkan Than Slavic

Bulgarian girl next door

Dark and Mysterious

Zero. Zilch. Nada.  That’s how much I knew about Bulgaria, a small Slavic country perched at the edge of southeastern Europe.  I knew nothing about its inhabitants.  And — most importantly — I knew nothing about the women.

Bulgarians must be some of the most mysterious of all Europeans, because in all of my travels I’ve never met a single Bulgarian.  But Maverick, you point out, Bulgarians aren’t very rich to travel like Americans or other Western Europeans.  Fair enough.  But I don’t even know any famous Bulgarians, whether in sports, academia, or anything else.  The only contact I’ve ever had with a Bulgarian was when I had a Bulgarian acquaintance back in San Francisco.  He looked like a regular Slav and wouldn’t be out of place in a place like Ukraine, Belarus or Russia.  As for Bulgarian women, I’ve never met one in my whole life, so I didn’t really know what to expect.

Having traveled extensively in Europe, I would say Bulgaria is undoubtedly one of the poorest countries I’ve ever been to.  I’m a big city guy, and Sofia was the first European capital that I wanted to leave as soon as I arrived.  Plovdiv, the second biggest city, is more pleasant, but outside the historical old town, the city is no better than Sofia.

The first thing that you notice about Bulgarian women is the amazingly dark, jet-black hair (the girl below is very typical Bulgarian). In fact, I don’t remember the last time I was in a country where most women had such dark, richly black hair.  In Spain and Italy, most women have the predictable combo of olive skin and either dark brown or black hair, a combination which I love; in Bulgaria, many women were light skinned but with jet black hair, a strange combination pointing to a mixing of genes.

Very Typical Bulgarian Girl

Most Bulgarian women are what I call “truly Eastern European.” This doesn’t specifically refer to their origins, but more to their mentality (you can be Eastern European but behave and think in a more Western way.) For instance, regardless where they’re actually going, they always dress like they’re going to a funeral: black leather boots, black leather jackets, black shirts and skirts.  There’re no hipsters with bright clothing and large framed glasses, although that’ll probably change in the next few years as Western advertising becomes more prevalent.  This is similar to how women (and men) dress in neighboring Romania, Ukraine and Russia.  Dressing like an Eastern European means, for the most part, also having an Eastern European mentality, which in turn means that the women are extra feminine and the man are, well, very manly.  No feminism and metro-sexuality here.

On paper, Bulgarians are Slavs just like most of Eastern Europeans (Serbians, Ukrainians, Russians, Polish).  However, I’d never guess that if I see a random Bulgarian girl walking on the streets of New York.  My first guess would easily be Greek, with a bit of Turkish thrown in.  Another words, more Balkan than purely Slavic.

As usual my mode d’emploi was my trusted day game.  I walked around and, either outright approached women on the streets, coffee shops, and metro stations, or seized opportunities as they jumped on my lap.

Here are my initial observations after interacting with numerous Bulgarian girls:

  • Most quality girls have (serious) boyfriends.  If you see a confident, well-dressed woman, chances are she has a (serious) boyfriend.  On my second day I met a very cute girl on the Sofia metro.  Everything was going great until she told me that she’s on her way home to her boyfriend.  Another girl I met in a coffee shop told me she moved to Sofia (from a smaller city) to be with her boyfriend.
    While this is very typical in Eastern Europe, it’s greatly amplified in the Balkans.  This is something I can mitigate in Ukraine and Russia, but I would need more time on the ground to learn the optimal game for Bulgarian women.  The flip side is that less quality girls are always single and ready to mingle.
  • Being Western isn’t a novelty.  Telling girls that I was an American from New York would elicit a lukewarm response.  It was almost like I was from some generic city that everyone had already “been to” thanks to the numerous movies and TV shows allowing anyone to live there vicariously.  Perhaps being an American is becoming more and more generic than a novelty.  I experimented by telling them I was a Russian guy from Moscow and received slightly more interested reactions.
    Of course, this would vary depending on the kind of girls you’re dealing with.  The “Eastern European” type I mentioned above would gravitate to “alpha” Eastern Europeans (e.g., a Russian guy from Moscow); whereas a hipsterish girl might dig American/Western guys more.
  • Hit or miss knowledge of English.  For a poor, Southern European country Bulgarians speak surprisingly good English.  Most women I talked to were able to understand me and reply with no problems — until you meet one who doesn’t.  One interesting fact is that most girls are also studying or already speak Spanish.  During one date with a very cute girl, we were literally speaking 3 languages: English (mostly), Spanish (here and there), and Bulgarian/Russian mixture (when she didn’t know a word in either of the previous languages).
  • Lack of eye contact.  Like in most of Eastern Europe, smiling and eye contact directed at strangers is generally a sign of weakness.  I look Southern European for the most part, and, as a result, received almost no eye contact in Bulgaria.  Most Bulgarians easily thought I was Bulgarian or even Greek, so relying on eye contact is a poor indicator of interest.  I would assume being a 6’4” Norwegian Viking with spiky blonde hair would buy you more attention, but still it wouldn’t be something I would rely on.  If you’re southern European looking like me, you’ll have to work to get noticed.
  • Traditional dating culture.  Nothing surprising here: Balkans is one of the most conservative regions in Europe when it comes to dating and courtship.  I estimate you’d need solid three days of dates (or more) before getting her to come back home with you.  Don’t expect to fly in on eazyJet from London for a weekend and bang women left and right.  I would aim for at least a solid two weeks, but, as usual, the more the better.  Pipeling beforehand might help, but I don’t do that so I wouldn’t know.

Bulgaria was only my second exposure to the Balkans (Serbia was first).  I definitely need more time on the ground to learn more about this interesting region and its beautiful women.  That should all change this summer when I return there for a longer and more deeper exploration.

Sofia, Bulgaria Is One Of Europe’s Ugliest Cities

I consider “Sofia” to be a beautiful name.  It carries a certain eloquence and sophistication.  So, one shouldn’t be far off in thinking that if a city is called Sofia, it should similarly be a beautiful and majestic city.  That’s exactly what I thought, except for one thing: I was wrong.  Dead wrong.

I’ve been to my share of shitholes around the world, so when it comes to evaluating cities I have a pretty lax criteria: it has to be either solid or charming.  The city should be solid (i.e., not falling apart), because, well, you don’t want to be walking around and have a lose brick fall on your head.  You also don’t want to trip by a loose piece of concrete on the sidewalk.

On the other hand, if it’s not solidly built, then hopefully it possesses a certain level of charm.  Maybe it’s a historical city and is beautifully preserved, so even if all there’s to see are building carcasses, at least they’re attractive carcasses from the 15th or 16th centuries.

Frequent readers will know that I hated Medellin because it’s nothing more than a boring city without a soul.  There’s absolutely nothing to do or see.  But what Medellin has going for itself is that — unlike the rest of Colombia — it’s a solidly built city.  Drug money helped build excellent infrastructure and large malls in affluent neighborhoods such as Envigado and El Poblado.  Medellin has no charm but at least it’s not falling part.  Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, is another city that doesn’t have much charm, but is built very well.

Another city that I thought was shit at first was Bucharest, Romania.  However, as I spent more time in it, I realized that, while it’s woefully falling apart, the city is indeed charming in some mysterious ways.  You can be walking along some main street, turn into a smaller alley, and find a random building dating few centuries back.  It’s an odd mix of modern, Communist, and historical architecture.  It has charm.

Sofia has neither.  Sofia is falling apart and has no charm.  Having been to almost all European capitals, I’m proud to say that Sofia is the ugliest European capital I’ve been to.  It’s a dump.

A good description of Sofia is that the whole city looks like it’s been razed to the ground as a result of some war, but instead of being duly rebuilt, has instead been left to rot.  Except that the city didn’t endure any recent conflicts.  Even Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999, is nicer than Sofia.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the pictures I snapped of this majestic city.

For instance, here’s a beautiful view outside my apartment’s window:

IMG_0861

Here’s downtown’s main pedestrian street (yes, really!):

IMG_0869

Here’s a typical sidewalk:

IMG_0867

 

Here’s another sidewalk:

IMG_0872

 

At night the city turns pitch dark as a result of “optimally” placed streetlights at one-mile (or more) intervals.  Many times I wanted to take out my phone and use it as a flashlight so that I didn’t step into a loose asphalt block or dog shit, which the streets are “blessed” with.

As an Eastern European guy, I perfectly understand that Eastern European cities don’t have the elegance of their Western counterparts.  Not many cities can match the elegance of Paris, Barcelona or Rome.  Fair enough.  But they can at least try to build something worth being proud off.  For example, the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, is not exactly Paris but it’s a very beautiful city in its own right.  The city’s main boulevard, Kreshyatik, is imposing, and the surrounding buildings look like they will be around for few more centuries.  It’s a magnificent city, and if I lived there, I would be beaming with nothing but pride and admiration.

I believe people should be proud of the cities they built and inhabit, especially capital cities that serve as gateways to their countries.  But it’s really hard to find something to be proud of in Sofia.  Maybe it’s there after all, but you can’t see it, smell it, feel it, or touch it.  Perhaps it’s something invisible.  Someone recently told me that a really ugly city is Tirana, Albania’s capital.  However, unless I witness its ugliness myself, Sofia duly takes the prize as one of Europe’s ugliest cities.

OK, what about the women, you ask? Patience, little grasshoppers — my breakdown will appear in a future post.

A Man Is Nothing More Than The Sum of His Experiences

“What language are you guys speaking?” asked the tall and cocky German.

He was smiling, but with a fake smile reminiscent of a used car salesman.  Not long ago he was gaming a cute dark-haired Portuguese girl but now all her attention was directed at me.  He was trying to win her back.

He was tall, good looking with an arrogance of a (European) Northerner, a German no less.  Unfortunately for him, that wouldn’t be enough in this case.

It was my first time in Berlin, the capital of the formerly glorious and imperialistic kingdom of Prussia.  Things have greatly changed since, as all I saw were hipsters in skinny jeans riding bicycles.

burg-hohenzollern

It was summer and I found myself in an enclosed outdoor area.  Around me were four small-enclosed dance areas pumping random techno and house music.  The area in the middle was designed for mingling, smoking and even fresh food — there was a small food stand serving grilled chicken, hotdogs, and other similar foods.

I was with a younger French guy and an older Dutch guy.  The French guy’s goal for the night was to get laid.  The tall Dutchman was more laid back, he was here to relax and enjoy the atmosphere.

Suddenly I heard Portuguese spoken.  It was the more abrasive, harder sounding variety — European Portuguese.  No, it wasn’t from sweet Brazil, but that certainly didn’t dissuade my curiosity.

I slowly craned my neck to my right and noticed the source of this beautiful language.  It was two girls in their early-mid twenties.  They were olive-skinned with beautiful long dark brown hair.  But they weren’t alone; a German guy had already integrated himself into the pair trying to chat them up.  They seemed young and gullible.  He knew it and capitalized on their naiveté.

I was intrigued.  Hearing Portuguese is like an aphrodisiac to me.  It’s like a drug, a cure for all my troubles and pain.

It always makes me remember my great times in Brazil.  A sudden flood of memories rush in.  It’s no wonder most of my conversations with my ex-girlfriends in Brazil are always littered with the phrase “boas lembranças” (“good memories”) as a testament to our unforgettable experiences.

However, that night I wasn’t enjoying a cold beer on the tropical beaches of Rio; I was in the land of the Teutonic knights.  And one of them was busy chatting up a cute girl who I found very attractive.

My strategy was simple: I would somehow leverage my knowledge of Portuguese.  If she bit my bait then that’s great, if not, then no problem.

Few minutes later she hastily got up and walked straight to the food vendor.  She was hungry.  By that time a small group of hungry clubbers were taking a break from dancing and a small line had formed.  I wasn’t hungry, but knew I had to get up and stand behind her in order to talk to her.

Without further hesitation, I got up and joined the line right behind her.  The line was barely moving and people were getting impatient.  I looked out in the direction of the food stand and sighed, “I can’t believe it” in Portuguese.

She instantly turned around to see who was uttering her mother’s tongue.  I didn’t look at her; my gaze was still fixated in the distance, towards the food stand.  Feeling confused, she smiled and asked me if I speak Portuguese.  I waited a few seconds before replying to the affirmative.  She sensed an accent and asked where I was from.

Hook, line and sinker.

old_town_streets-wide

Months ago I was back in my New York apartment wondering if all that traveling was for nothing; if all I was doing was trying to find myself in some ways.  Maybe I should’ve just grown up and gotten a nice job somewhere in Manhattan.  Maybe I could’ve had a normal 9-5 schedule like the rest of normal humans.  Maybe starting every conversation with “what do you do” at cheesy happy hours was the best way to pass my evenings.

Yes, I learned languages and lived in foreign countries, but wasn’t I merely postponing my initiation into adulthood? Maybe the time had come for a regular job, a wife, and a nice house with white picket fences

All those months and years of solo travel.  Solo wondering around foreign lands without friends and family.  Going from city to city, from country to country.  Looking for a place I can call home.

All those nights going out and hooking up on the streets of Rio, Medellin, Bogotá, Mexico City, Cali and Sao Paulo.

Accumulating all that experience, experience consisting of few successes and many more rejections.

I kept telling myself that its OK to keep learning new things because there was no way to fill up the brain with information anyway, that in reality you’re expanding its capacity.

Like learning one of the least spoken languages in the world — Portuguese.  I don’t care about Portugal and Africa, so where will I need it outside Brazil?

Apparently the answer was staring right at my face: Berlin.

Maybe I was finally doing something right.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was slowly building my understanding — via world experience and knowledge, — understanding that you cannot simply absorb via osmosis while reading book after book in the comfortable halls of your university library.

And then when you eventually leave those foreign and unforgiving lands that bear your sweat, agony, and misery, you take all that knowledge and experience with you.  In fact, from then on, it’s always with you; it becomes a part of you.  A part of your new life.

People caution against wasting time, but is there such thing as waiting time when you’re amassing new experiences?

They say to “fake it until you make it,” but what happens when you don’t need to fake it any longer and cease faking it altogether?

You emerge as a different person — you emerge a man.

What is a man? A man is nothing more than the sum of his experiences.  He’s the sum of his sweat, his toils, his successes and his rejections.  Nothing else.  Nothing more.

The richer the experiences, the richer the man.

And there’s no substitute for experience: you either have it or you don’t.

I have plenty of friends in New York that are busy building their cookie cutter futures from their tiny cubicles.  Sure, we can drink Bud Light and talk about the latest episode of Californication, but I can’t ask them for advice on some of the things I’m facing because they simply don’t have the experience of a proper reference point to give advice in the first place.

My friends and I are living on different terms in different worlds.

Once in a while all that experience can mutate and condense into four magical words that, on one lovely summer night, can be uttered to another person, a beautiful girl with olive skin and long wavy hair — a person who I didn’t know before, but who, in a matter of few seconds, had nonetheless suddenly become very intrigued.

In this case knowing Portuguese — like all experience — was simply a means to an end.

When I invited the girls over to our area, the French guy’s eyes lit up.  The Dutch guy was curious as well.  He mentioned the girls earlier but didn’t have the balls to do something about it.

The German guy was left all alone.  He really had no chance.

New York Women Are Upset That Guys Are Not Courting Them

Can’t believe I missed this. New York Times had an interesting article about how dating is becoming synonymous with hanging out.

The word ‘date’ should almost be stricken from the dictionary,” Ms. Silver said. “Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy to interpret.

and

Women in their 20s these days are lucky to get a last-minute text to tag along.

Having lived in New York a good portion of my life I completely sympathize with Big Apple’s women.

And just when I was ready to donate to “Big Apple’s Women Dating Relief Fund,” I stumbled on the following paragraph:

After an evening when she exchanged flirtatious glances with a bouncer at a Williamsburg nightclub, the bouncer invited her and her friends back to his apartment for whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese. When she agreed, he gamely hoisted her over his shoulders, and, she recalled, “carried me home, my girlfriends and his bros in tow, where we danced around a tiny apartment to some MGMT and Ratatat remixes.

So much for being a challenge. Why would any quality guy put any effort courting you after you went home with a bouncer soon after meeting him?

I don’t know of any normal, self-respecting women who would go home with some guy she just met for “whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese.”

But, then again, we’re talking about the emancipated women of New York City. The same women who fought and were eventually freed from the clutches of male tyranny and oppression. The home of Sex And The City and all.

Gentlemen: Would this be the type of woman you would take out on dates? Would this be the type of woman you would want to marry? Would this be a type of woman you would start a family with? Would this be the kind of woman you want your own daughters to model after? I certainly hope not.

Where I come from that kind of woman would be called a cheap (boxed macaroni and cheese doesn’t cost much) slut, but now she’s known as a modern and independent woman.

This story also reminded me of my own experiences few months after I got back from Brazil.

On one of my first nights out in my old stumping ground of San Francisco, I hit it off with a girl (at least as much as one can with an aloof, hard-to-get playing American girl) in our social circle that I’ve seen but never talked to before.

We flirted a bit, and she playfully hit me for teasing her. Later that night she found me and added me on Facebook. I texted her suggesting we grab a drink Friday night. (I know, I know, I wasn’t being aloof or indirect enough, but after living in Brazil I dropped the mandatory 3-5 day wait, aloofness, and all that other bullshit.)

After a three-hour delay, she replied that I should stop by after her capoeira (the new Yoga) practice so that her, her friends, and I can all hang out together. I deleted her number and never contacted her again.

It’s all my fault. I should’ve known better. I should’ve been OK with hanging out instead of coming out strong by proposing to meet up one-on-one. But then again, I still don’t think it would’ve worked out — I wasn’t a bouncer and inviting her to my tiny apartment for “whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese.”

Serbian Women: The Perfect Combination of Slavic and Mediterranean Genes

I give you three reasons to visit Serbia:

Serbian Women

Serbian Women

Serbian Women

Tall, dark and sexy.  Those were my first impressions of Serbian women after I landed in Belgrade’s Tesla International Airport.  Over the next few days, as I braved the chilly street of Serbia’s capital, my impressions were only strengthened, reinforced and solidified.

I’ve been with all kinds of women but there’s something very alluring about Slavic women.  First, they’re very feminine — they ooze femininity.  While the rest of the world is being infested with feminist cancer, Serbia—like the rest of Slavic countries—has simply been immune.  Seems like feminism and Slavs are like oil and water: they just don’t mix too well.  Of course, as an Eastern European guy, I’m also a bit biased having grown up around them from an early age.

My single gripe with Slavic women is that most of them have pale skin.  I’m not much into blondes and prefer my women to have a bit of color.  There’re Spaniards and Italians but they’re quickly going the way of their American counterparts: unfeminine, rude and bitchy.  Brazilian women fit this requirement perfectly with their sexy olive skin and bikini tans, but I’m miles away from the promised land.  (Having said that, I will never ever kick Christine Bell or her look-a-likes out of my bed.)

Enter Serbia.  Serbian women are Slavs but with dark, olive-skinned complexions of their Mediterranean counterparts.  They are tall, slim, have dark hair and striking eyes.  Result: the perfect combination of beauty and sexiness.

Serbia is a country rich in history.  For 500 years it was ruled by Ottoman Empire (Turks).  After its collapse, the region gained the notoriety of being known as the “Powder Keg of Europe” as the inciter of several conflicts leading to the outbreak of World War I.  After World War II it became one of the five republics of the newly formed Yugoslavia.  In 1991 — after more disastrous wars — it finally became an independent state.   The latest issue is the partly recognized Republic of Kosovo, and, as I quickly discovered, an interesting topic of conversation with the girls.

Serbia’s rich history, especially the long Turkish conquest which resulted in the voluntary – and involuntary – mixing of the races, might explain the dark and sexy complexion of the women.

Serbians speak Serbian, a south Slavic language, which is the same as Croatian and Montenegrin.  Unlike Croatians who use the Latin alphabet, Serbians use Cyrillic, so you might need to familiarize yourself with it to understand and read the signs (it’s very simple).  As a native Russian speaker, I could understand most of the written text but deciphering spoken speech was next to impossible.

Speaking English was never a problem as most Serbians (at least under 30) I’ve met spoke decent English.

It seems the more south in Europe you go, the more traditional and relationship-minded the women get.  The Balkans is home to some of the most traditional women in Europe.  Don’t expect to just fly in for a weekend, have one-night stands, and fly out.  The game is what I call “deep game” requiring a much greater time commitment.  It’s the kind of game I’ve been doing most of my life before getting a bit spoiled in Scandinavia.  Think weeks and months instead of days and weekends.  Serbs, like other Balkans, rarely have one-night stands, and will need to see you a few times before giving you access to the goods.  The good news is that the women are extremely loyal to their men, a far cry from the sluttiness of American women.

The bulk of my game consisted of day gaming around town.  I carried a city map with me at all times, making it easy to approach girls waiting at public squares, parks and bus stops.  Once they would answer my query, I would use standard game to transition the conversation and get a number.  Serbian girls are very warm and receptive to being approached.  One girl even volunteered to be my guide, showing me around the old fortress of Kalemegdan.

Good place to jumpstart your day game is to head one of the main city squares (I liked Trg Republica).  There you will see various people waiting for their friends to show up.  The other good place to spit game is the pedestrian street of Knez Mihailova.  Eye contact was rare, so if you’re the lucky recipient of some beauty’s curiosity, don’t hesitate and approach quickly.

Serbia was my first foray into the Balkans.  (I’ve also been to Romania, but it’s not usually considered to be part of the region.)  A week was just scratching the surface.  I certainly plan to do a longer trip next time and visit more countries in the area: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and possibly Bulgaria as well.

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