Paco´s Life: Madrid

Easter Europe V: Riga y conclusiones / Riga and Conclussions

6 am and I just landed in Riga. I am tired, very tired. The aiport bus gets me to the center. Too early for calling the girl who is hosting me here, one thing is hospitality, a different one is to bother people. She had told me she was working till late so I will wait until her message. The problem is that is 7am and I am pretty fucked up. So I consider the hotel option… First try: 80 euros the night, second try: 95, third: 75… I think about it… bah, fuck it, I already spent enough money in this trip, I get rid of my luggage in the station lockers and eats this huge fried eggs, bacon plus potatoes breakfast after which the world suddenly looks brighter.

Let´s go for the sightseen then, map on my pocket and the whole city to walk around. 12 o clock and I am done with the city, nice place, full of parks, coffees and monuments. The weather, as it has been all over the trip, is on my side, sunny and hot. I beat the temptation of lying on the grass (later on I found out this is not allowed in Riga). So I end up in an internet place where I found out another person I had contacted in HC has invited me to a latvian party somewhere outside the city, some farewell party of someone, starting at 5 in the afternoon and lasting till the next day. Umm, promising… I seriously consider it but it is a too last minute plan, no idea how I am going to be able to be back in Riga on time for my plane and maybe I already did enough risky things in this trip, better to stick to the original plan. Besides, Eva contact me saying is already OK for me to get to her place. Great, I am not a homeless anymore. I just need to find her house, I gotta take some bus somewhere till the end of its route. No problem, it wasn’t so difficult in the end, Eva lives in an apartment in the outskirts of Riga and if she found strange that her Spanish guest could only say a few sentences before falling sleep slept in a sofa she pretended very well… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Two hours later, my host had to start working so I was in the street again, alone? Nooo, I still had another contact in Riga, Viktorija, another HC girl who had told me she couldn’t host me but she would happily take me out for a beer. Cooool At that point there was little for me to see in Riga but it is definitely better when you have someone local to tell you about the places, specially when is such an interesting person as Vicky (thanks!). So we spent the afternoon and got into the night, time to see what Riga´s nightlife was about. And same story as the Vilnius one, Vicky called another friend who called another one and I ended up partying with the three latvian girls. Well, better said, Russian – Latvians, Latvians or Russians, I wasn’t so sure in the end who was what. It seems that sometimes they were speaking Russian between them, some others latvian… Funny mixture they have. Anyway, what a “female” trip I have had, next one lets see if I can get in touch with local fellows, not that I was looking for girls, just that they were the ones replying to my messages.

So it ended up been a serious Riga’s nightlife tour, with different kind of places (of course some nargilee involved ;). And, specially remarkable was the last night club where I could see the way latvian guys try to hook up with girls. Uff! Terrible! After a minute been there, each of my latvian companions has a couple of guys dancing around and trying to approach her in a rather aggressive and persistent way. It was sort of surrealistic for me to be in the middle of that mess, absolutely sober and seen the carnage. One of them was so stubborn with one of the Latvians that he forced us to leave the place so he would not break her neck trying to get her mouth closer (not an exaggeration). I ain’t joking, Italians are shy people compared to these people. Funny to see but a bit pathetic and it also put an end to the night so I joined Eva who had finished work and went to sleep. It was 3 in the morning and the last and calm night of the trip was ending. And here I am, trying to find anything else about Riga to complete this post but there isn’t. The city is very nice, also the latvian girls and a bit less the latvian guys (at least the ones in the discos).

So let’s go straight to the last chapter. The eastern Europe Tour left behind important figures: 6 countries, 1500 km by car, 7 flights, two trains, one friend less, 5 friends more, 2 very drunken nights, 3 of fine party, very few hours sleeping and a lot walking, around 4 kilos more and, above all this the feeling of have lived a trip close to perfection. And it might sound unbelievable to use the word “perfect” when it had such a beginning but the fact is that, after that disgusting experience everything was just great. I felt at home in all places I was, the weather was good and the nights kept been alcoholic and funny but in the right measure. So, the way a trip has to be. And this trip has made me realize than I am starting to enjoy doing something I never really fancied before: to travel at my own, without depending on anybody and changing people from one day to the next one. It is not that I don’t like travelling with friends and of course I consider what happened with Giorgos a very unusual thing, I have travelled many times with different people without problems and I will keep doing that but, on the other hand, I am starting to feel very comfortable in this kind of “lonely traveler” situations. Specially if I get such a good welcome as I have had in all the cities I visited. So, I made it! Interesting or not, I wrote about the whole trip. I don’t know if this is funny to read but it definitely was to write it which is what it really matters

Easter Europe V: Vilnius, vodka lituano / Lithuanian vodka

Afer a short flight in which the most remarkable thing was that I threw a glass of tomato juice all over me, I arrived in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania and second last stop of my tour. More hospitalityclub there, in this case a known face, Karolina, a girl who hosted in Madrid on that period all Lithuania seemed to be visiting Spain. Even though I insisted to find my own way, she came all the way to the airport to pick me up so the arrival was easy, one hour later I was already in her place. Karoline lives in the outskirts of Vilnius, sharing a house with a Lithuanian family and a room with Raimunda and a bottle of Lithuanian vodka that we drunk in minutes. That’s a really nice way to start a visit! Thursday, 11 pm and already drunk as hell, the two Lithuanians and I went partying to the wildest place in town (night punisher visitors: you definitely have to pay a visit to Prospekt). Hot Lithuanian girls all over, foreign guys trying to pick them up and close dance music. In fact, I had enough with the company I was bringing with me, my two hosts took their turns to make me dance. As many of you know that´s not exactly my main skill (some sucker even called me Robocop) but, compared to the Lithuanians, and we the right provision of vodka, at least in my drunk mind I felt Juanes and had a great time. Surrealistic and wild night that, at least this time, did not cost me a friend. Anyway don’t let your imagination fly, the two Lithuanians slept in one bed and I slept in the other

Lithuanian vodka must be good stuff cause I woke up in a very good condition. My two Lithuanians had to work but no problem, I still knew another Lithuanian girl in the city that called another one (a lot of Lithuanian girls I know…) and party animal became cultural animal and started the Vilnius tour with local guides included. Once a again, a very complete itinerary. Starting from the local castle, from which you have a complete view over the city. Vilnius is a curious place, few tall buildings and surrounded everywhere by forests. There is green all over and many churches spread all over the city. One of them is so nice that it is said that Napoleon wanted to take it back to France with him. Dovile and Kristine were, again, a perfect company for the visit, riding me by car from one interesting place to the next one. I was in a very typical place called Balmonte, looks like this kind of countryside villages we have in Spain where people go to marry. As usual, I totally fill my stomach with local food (the pink soup you can see in the pics is just delicious!) so I needed another of my already classical travelling siestas. After that…oh surprise! Around the corner an unique and delicious smell hit my nose… A nargilee place!! Someone said I would not be able to survive all the trip without smoking “cachimba” and she was right, Lithuanian nargilee moment  Besides, there was some sort of Baltic festival going on in the city: music, food an typical beer to spend the afternoon.

Anyway, the touristic tour did not finish there, back to the car and heading to Trakai castle,20 km away from Vilnius, in the middle of a national park containing more than 200 lakes. Very nice place, even though we could not get inside the castle, just the view was worth the trip. Besides, we arrived there with the sunset so we got quite a few very nice pictures. I really recommend the trip! The castle was started to be built in the XIV century and, after been abandon and reconstructed a few times, nowadays it´s been used for music concertas and opera. I couldn’t get it so there is not much else to say about the interior. Well, you know, culture is not my best, at least not the culture out of the bars.. So just have a look at the pics and here is the link to the Wikipedia

Not too much party that night. We got to Karolina´s place around 11 and I had to fly at 5am to Riga so getting drunk and risk the flight as I did in Budapest did not seem the best idea at this point of the trip. I just drunk the last shots of Lithuanian vodka with two (male!) friends of Karol. It might sound weird but I really appreciated some male company, some basketball chatting (basketball is very big in Lithuania) and a couple of hours of sleep before getting the taxi to the airport. It had been quite a rough week and my body was starting to seriously complain but that was the idea wasn’t it? It is not so easy to be in 6 countries in one week and good the trip ended up been by plane instead of car, otherways it would have been even harder.

So, once again, the local people were just perfect. This trip has made me reconsider my value as a host. Partying is the only thing I do with people coming to Madrid and only if I feel in the mood. I am hardly able to tell them what to visit in Madrid. My Lithuanian hosts, on the other hand, spend all their time with me, taking me to the places to visit. So, once again, a series of “thank you”, to Karolina, Raimunda, Doville and Kristine! You are welcome in Madrid any time, just tell me in advance so I can really plan some touristic stuff and not only drinking

I am aware that my posts are becoming less deep and what I write is probably less interesting but the fact is that I feel quite lazy to write about something that happened two weeks ago. And, besides, lets be honest, what is really interesting in these posts is when something goes wrong. Disgraces, funny histories, risky situations… Nothing of that happened in Vilnius nor in Lublin. Everything went just perfect from the beginning till the end. Just another great hospitalityclub experience. Very funny for me to live it but probably very boring for you to read it. Another nice and small town, more food degustation and, once again, I was leaving a place with the feeling I had seen everything which was to be seen there.

Easter Europe IV: Lublin, descubriendo Polonia / Discovering Poland

If Budapest had started to fix the difficult beginning of this trip, Lublin definitely made me forget it. From this point the Easter Europe Tour would acquire a much more interesting character. To travel without company would make the trip a more personal an authentic experience. From this moment we could say the success of this tour would mainly depend on how good the hospitality people I had contacted would be. In Lublin the contact was Ula, a very friendly polish teacher who, already from the first messages we had exchanged had given me a very good impression. Actually, the decision of keeping Lublin as a stop of my trip had been motivated not only for the personal pride of not changing my itinerary because of the Katerini incident but also due to the good vibrations I had about this girl. And Ula didn’t disappoint, she picked me up at the station and spent with me all my time there. After the crazy Hungarian night I arrived to Lublin pretty fucked up so, the first thing I did, following the most typical Spanish stereotype, was to sleep a very necessary siesta at Ula`s nice apartment. This trip has been very intense, just one day in each city, walking a lot during the day and drinking a lot during the night. A fucking exhausting experience, likely to destroy anyone´s resistance. It`s been days with hardly any sleep so I found out these short 40 minutes siestas were basic to recover my energy and been able to keep going.

Anyway, let´s back to the issue: Lublin and Ula or, better said, Lublin, Ula and Ewa, Ula´s flatmate who also happened to be a very nice girl. Both of them took me for a walk into town and, more than the city itself, what I really enjoyed was the conversation. I happened to had just read a book about the II World War which described how germans and russians had taken their turn to invade and fuck the polish. After the Word, Poland ended up controlled by the URSS with all this fact implies: totally lack of thinking freedom, hard communism system, limited food allowance, a controlled government and all these kind of non-nice consequences. In Ula´s words, the polish would only be allowed, for example, to one packet of jam per month since most of the food produced in Poland would go to Moscow. No wonder they don’t like Ivan too much. It wasn’t till the end of the eighties when a movement conducted by work associations and students managed to get rid of the communism and started the current capitalism system, in line with the rest of Europe.

I spoke about all this with my hosts while I was having, as usual, a delicious polish lunch – dinner – whatever. Here you have some recommendations to fill your stomach in Poland: first some “bigos”, vegetable dish I don’t really remember much what it was, followed by “pierogis”, bread balls filled with different stuff and ending with a dish made of potatoes and meat called “placek po zbojnicku”. All very tasty, I probably gained around 5 kilos in this trip. It was 7 pm and I was totally full, good we had a good walk through the city afterwards. Lublin is the typical small student town, nice to walk around and a bit empty at this time of the year. Continuing the communism history overview, they took me to the soviet bar in Lublin. Well, maybe the ruskies were a bit bastards but the atmosphere of this kind of places is definitely cool, with all these soviet signs, propaganda, pictures of secret police and stuff like that. Not to mention the menu containing a lot of different varieties of vodka…

So, with my stomach feeling more comfortable thanks to the soviet alcohol, we continued the Lublin tour: people playing music in the middle of the street, pints of beer with a vodka shot at the bottom and a few funny pictures

The night ended up with a funny cultural exchange at Lula´s place: polish vodka vs the leftovers of my Pampero Special Edition bottle of rum, Spanish music vs polish hits. And, pay attention to the great musical finding of the trip, I am sure this will become a classic in Orense v2 parties! The guy with the beard is amazing, I could not stop laughing!! That´s the good thing about travelling, you come back home with new musical influences…

With such a good ingredients, the “party” kept going till very late so next day there was only time to visit the university and take the road again, well, I mean the train… Sitting in that wagon I did my balance of the Lublin stop and I got the conclusion it had been perfect even though it hadn’t been my typical way of travelling. Without any specially nice places to visit nor hard party, the polish experience had left a very good memory. I had the feeling of had been involved in that country more in a day than a normal tourist would do in a week. I had gained a friend I am sure I am going to meet again and the bad start of the trip had been definitely forgotten. I started to think that, as long as the rest of people I was going to meet were as good as Ula, the experience was going to be great. I realize there is starting to be a lot of “thank you”s here but they are more than deserved. Thanks a lot Ula Lula!!

Eastern Europe Tour III: Budapest, Italia al rescate / Budapest, Italy on the rescue

After saying goodbye to Dragana, we started our way to Budapest. At this moment things were not clear at all for me. After Budapest Giordos and his car would dessapear from the trip and from my life so I had to find some other means of transportation to get to Riga, where I had to catch my flight to Madrid. Somehow I had to arrange polish train or buses to cross the country from South to North. I had to decide whether to continue with the original plan Lublin - Kaunas - Riga or to do something different. I even considered to give up the plane in Riga and just stay longer in Budapest or go to some easier to reach place where I could catch another flight to Madrid. This was basically a bunch of possibilities in the air that I could not actually consider till I would find a fucking internet connection. To make things worse, I could not reach any of my contacts in Budapest, off mobile phones, non-replied messages and a totally unclear future. In addition to the increasing tension with the greek guy while we were getting close to the moment I would just leave his car. I had this moment, not really of crisis or “agobio” but of been angry with the world. Just some good news coming from Spain through text messages helped to improved a bit my humour (congrats Ana Anyway, so there I was, walking around with my bag and my huge laptop (remember, this was supposed to be a road trip), when the rescue message arrived. Nicola is an italian guy I met in Madrid in that period I was renting my flat to Erasmus people. After that, we exchanged visits Cardiff - Vicenza and kept in touch with Messenger. Therefore, I knew he had got a job in Budapest and I had sent him an email telling him I was going and asking for his phone number. His answer came right on time, una hour after I was sharing a great hungarian dinner with him. In fact, by the time he wrote me, I had already assumed I was gonna spend a night in a hotel and I even fancied the idea so it wasnt such a big dissaster for me but, anyway, much better like this. Nicola is not hungarian neither belongs to HospitalityClub but he was a perfect host Grazie Nico!

Surprisingly that night I didnt drink a shitload of alcohol so next morning I could wake up at 8:30 (amazing) and start my touristic tour of the city. I think this time I made a good job and did all the sightseen I was supposed to do there. Budapest is actually the union of two different cities: Buda and Pest, separated by the Danubio. Buda is the old part, with its castle and narrow streets, Pest is more moderm with the parlament, bars, restaurants and table dance clubs. Remarkable things: the bridges joining the two cities, the view from the castle or the magnificient structure of the parlament. I even had time to go to the baths situated in a huge park in the northern part where I spent two hours getting relaxed in the different pools and saunas. Budapest was supposed to be the more culturally interesting stop of the trip and it didnt dissapoint. Its a very beautiful place. Great food as well, the first night with Nicola I ate this delicious cheese food inside a bread and the next day some Gulash, very tasty but maybe not the most appropiate thing to be eaten at 3 pm with 30 degrees temperature… And that delicious beer… Budapest is cool!

However, I still had to sort out the trip planification. Great bath and great food but I still didnt know where I was gonna spend next night. So I went to the Cervantes Institute in Budapest where Guerrino, Warsaw former ICEX and important night punisher, is workin. We are checking every possible combination of polish means of transportation, trains, 12h buses… At some point it looked impossible to went through Lublin as planned and cities such as Krakow or Warsaw seemed a better option. I even though of flying directly to Vilnius and skip Poland but, in the end, I take a decision: my trip was gonna be exactly the way I had planned it. No stupid incident was gonna make change it so, following my usual I-dont-give-a-shit-about-money policy, I booked three flights: Budapest - Warsaw, Warsaw - Vilnius and Vilnius - Riga and it between a train trip from Warsaw to Lublin. The only change ended up been the election of Vilnius instead of Kaunas but, in fact, I had always wanted to stop in Vilnius and it was Giorgos decision to select Kaunas instead. In Vilnius there was people I had hosted and, besides, avery lithuanian I had met told me it was a better place. So, no endless train trips and more time available to enjoy the places I was gonna visit. Besides, I dont think it was so expensive in the end, taking into acoount I was not exactly booking a lot of time in advance. I believe, and further experience proved it, that it was the right decision.

Once I had sorted out this little issue, it was time for the fun and well, I guess you imagine what I mean, meeting with Guerrino always ends up been a wild drinking night which you dont remember much about later. We burned Budapest nightlife. It is funny the Spanish idea of “botellón” (drinking in the street) is valid here too. There is this square in the center where everybody are drinking before going to clubs. So we drunk the rum bottle I still had from Spain with Nicola and another friend of Guerrino. After that we went to a club which probably was very nice but I cant tell much cause I dont remember nothing. Apparently, somehow I managed to reach Nicola´s place and get some little sleep before rushing to Budapest´s aiport to catch my flight to Warsaw. The second trip dissaster was close, just 5 minutes in advance but I got it. Still some little trouble in Warsaw but, in the end, I was comfortable settled in a polish train, watching the landscape and heading towards my next stop: Lublin.

All Budapest pictures here!

Eastern Europe Tour II: La crisis de Katerini vs hospitalidad serbia / Katerini crisis vs serbian hospitality

Katerini, northern Greece city, full of russian families spending their holidays, beach bars and not much more. The road heading there is nice though, Greece is a hilly country surrounded by the very blue Egean sea. Moreover, the food there is excellent…and this is basically all good I can say about the first stop of my particular Eastern Europe tour. Katerine was a fucking mess, one of this drunken nights I sometimes have in which everything goes out of control. Katerini was the end of my friendship with Giordos and a very drastic change in the trip plan. I am not gonna say here what happened nor to give my opinion about the reaction of my supposed greek friend. This is not anyone´s else business, the important fact concerning the trip story I am trying to tell in this blog is that he took the decision of travelling alone after Budapest. As you can imagine this result in a sort of nasty situation. We still had 2 days of driving and a night in Serbia to be together. Unfriendly faces and tense silence within the few square meters of the car. Nothing went further cause we are reasonable people after all but it wasnt pleasant and put in serious danger a trip which had just been borned.

So, after Katerini, we went all the way up to Nis, in South Serbia where a serbian girl from hospitalityclub was gonna host us. We left Greece and crossed all over Macedona as fast as we could. The dessertic macedonian landscape gave way to a much nicer one. Serbia, at least in its southern part, is a nice country, green, full of small villages with reed-roofed houses, valleys and hills. Moreover, the weather was pretty good so, at least concerning the outside of the car, the trip happened to be nice. Dragana was waitting for us in a swimming pool so we just arrived and went straight to the water. After that we headed to her place where the real HC experience started. I am realizing I keep going over and over this topic and may be repetitive but what a great thing hospitality club is! We spent the afternoon at Dragana´s place, drinking home - made alcohol with all her family, from the grandmother to the one year old nephew. From my point of view it is not only the nightlife in a trip like this, I am starting to enjoy more and more moments like the ones we had with this serbian family. It is in this moments when I really feel I am getting to know a country and achieving the goal of the trip. The hospitality we got from Dragana and her family was simply perfect and helped to improve the complicated situation the trip was turned into.We were watching the Spanish victory in the Eurocup final surrounded by serbians, a pity I hadnt brought with me a Spanish shirt of something, I could have become the king of the party. It was curious to see how all serbians were supporting Spain rather than the germans. After that we went partying, more calmed and less alcoholic this time but still quite intense. We stayed till quite late with she and her friends. Nice bars with live music and cheap drinks. Not bad for a Sunday, thanks Dragana

Next day we walked through the city in which, in fact, there wasnt too much to see. A few curious things like parkings they pay with text messages or the fact that serbian people probably dont work too much cause all the tables were full all the day. In conclussion, a very interesting taste of Serbia, a great host and a European championship. Quite a good remedy for the greek disaster..

Eastern Europe Tour I: El Comienzo / The beginning

The horizon can be seen in the far way, surrounded by beautiful hills and lightend by the sun of this nice greek morning. The engine roars consuming kms of road to the unknown. My heart bumps stimultated by the traveler exitemente and is in this moment, and only in this moment, when I find the meaning of my life and…in fact I am stuck in this car surrounded by this endless bunch of greeks going for their weekend holidays and producing a huge traffic jump. I am fucking starving cause I havent eaten anything warm since Thursday night and my already old bones are complaining about the night I spent yesterday sleeping on Milan´s airport floor. I probably stink and feel quite tired. But, all these minor details appart, I really fell all that bullshit about the travelling feeling.Besides, the night in Milan wasnt that bad, I ended up socializing with a group of greek girls and I got a typical greek cake probably made by the granmother in exchange for some room for them in the bench I was.

While I write this the traffic jump is starting to dissapear and now we are actually making progress. With a bit of luck my ass will be getting wet in the Aegean sea this afternoon. The first stop of our trip is Katherini, a city in the North of Greece from which neither Giorgos nor me know much appart from the fact that it has a beach. In this case we wont have local support and we will have to use the old way, looking for a hostel, place to go out etc… by ourselves. This first stop is primary nightlife based so there wont be much to tell about tomorrow, what happens in the night stays in the night I saw somewhere there is the Olympus montain nearby (where the Olympic Games started). If we make it up there I will tell you about but I honestly doubt it.

So, this is the first and hopefully not the last one entry for this trip. Lets hope so much time stuck in this car will help the writting. Talk to you soon…