A Spy on the Wall Travel Tales in the New Europe and Beyond

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of Central and Eastern Europe remains an enigma to Western audiences. Frequently the only knowledge Westerners have had of these Cold War nations has come from the spy genre of film and fiction. These depictions were almost universally negative; the countries horrid, the people villainous. In 2009, Christopher Kauffmann quit his nearly 30-year career as a journalist to fulfill a lifelong dream of moving to Europe. Over the course of the next five years, largely in a futile effort to find gainful employment, he explored this part of the world - and some others more visible on a travel agent's radar. Looking through the prism of what he had been taught to believe by those movies and books, he matched it up to what he found on the ground. It was usually far different. He discovered breathtaking scenery, culture galore and delightful, warm people, despite them having shared an often-horrendous history, both ancient and not. Along the way - and generally one step ahead of the border police - Kauffmann got chummy with quasi-famous squatters in Greater London; had to escape the clutches of an angry Russian club owner in Istanbul; spent a memorable evening with accused Croatian war criminals in Zagreb; learned to dance the "horo" in Bulgaria; survived a bout of Dracula's Revenge in Romania; experienced the shivers that go through one at Auschwitz; felt the weirdness of the U.S./NATO-manufactured state of Kosovo; saw the long-term after-effects of a paranoid dictatorship in Albania; and much more. It was all done on a shoestring budget. He stayed in youth hostels or on friendly sofas, not hotels. He ate street food or in inexpensive restaurants, not the four-star variety. He took buses and metros, not cabs. But, mostly, he just walked and walked, the best way for anyone to gain a better perspective of any town or city. Accompanied by photos in every chapter, this is a chronicle of his adventures and misadventures. In sum, for the traveler looking for a trip out of the ordinary, jump in, the water is fine.